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Rea dominates at district tennis
BOLIVAR — Evan Rea’s Friday started with a cut on his finger.
It ended with a medal in his hands.
In between, the Nevada High School junior and no. 1 seed at the Class 1 District 12 individual tennis tournament endured several questionable line calls and even a necessary change of shoes, but ultimately cruised past Bolivar’s Seth Martin on his home court and Harrisonville’s Nathan Barnett and Aden Dutter — the former on the campus of Southwest Baptist University, the latter back at Bolivar Middle School, but all in straight sets — to claim his first district singles championship, and the first for a Tigers netter in well over a decade.
“If I look back and think, it’s been a pretty crazy season,” said Rea, whose year is not done yet after advancing to the sectional round of state tennis next weekend, where he’ll face the runner-up of the Class 1 District 11 tournament. “The opponents just sometimes don’t look as hard to me, but I feel like it’s pretty crazy for anybody to do some of the things that have happened. It’ll hit me once I get home and wake up tomorrow.”
For NHS head coach Clayton Wheeler, Friday provided plenty of time to reflect on the significance of Rea’s run — and admire the adjustments he made along the way to come out victorious.
“District champ, that’s a big deal,” said Wheeler, whose top player only has two losses this season, both against the same player from Springfield Catholic (whom he will not have to worry about facing again because the Fightin’ Irish are in Class 3). “That’s just his play style. He’s got the physical abilities as well as the mental stamina and focus to get where he’s gotten today. He’s in a good spot.”
The fresh can of balls Rea opened before his first match of the day may have done more damage than his opening-round opponent.
Rea had to tape up his finger after cutting it before warm-ups — but was still able to shut out no. 8 Barnett 6-0, 6-0 to advance.
In the semifinals against no. 4 Martin, Rea’s finger began to bother him more, plus his white Nikes were falling apart, though he won the first set 6-1.
After a switch to his back-up pair of black Nikes, Rea held serve in the opening game, but did not appreciate Martin questioning some of his line calls. It frustrated Rea enough that, after breaking Martin’s serve in the next game, he lost back-to-back deuce points and found himself in a 2-2 tie.
“I played a little angrier today,” admitted Rea, who proceeded to win the next four games in a row and advance to the championship, where he would only encounter more questionable calls. “Normally I’m not that angry, but I called one out that was out, and he got a little angry. I know I’m honest, so it frustrated me that he thought I was making bad calls. In the championship game, I thought he cheated me out of a couple calls, which I was fine with at first, but then it got kind of annoying.”
Rea had another 2-0 lead, this time against no. 2 Dutter in that final match, when the back-and-forth about line calls began.
Rea thought one of his returns against Dutter’s serve hit the side line, but Dutter disagreed and eventually went on to win his first game — prompting Wheeler to enter the court and ask Rea if he wanted to request line judges. Rea declined, saying he would consider it if there was any more disagreement.
“The calls can rattle you a little bit, especially when you know that they’re not the right ones,” Wheeler said. “But again, that mental toughness, he just goes out there and does what he does. Good outcome so far.”
After holding serve to go up 3-1, Rea took Dutter to deuce (with ad scoring) once in the fifth game and then five times in the sixth — but Dutter won both to even the first set 3-3.
Rea rebounded in the next game by breaking Dutter’s serve without giving up a point, before taking the next two for a 6-3 opening set victory.
While Dutter took a bathroom break between sets, Wheeler and assistant coach Lex Blue discussed with Rea what they were seeing and how he could close the championship out.
“The kid stayed right in the middle of the court, and Coach Blue and I were trying to get Evan to stay off that T and go over him or beside him when he’s at the net,” said Wheeler, who watched Rea incorporate more long and wide volleys and lobs, plus a few of his signature backhand stabs, to easily win the second set 6-1. “Evan went out, made the adjustments he needed to make, and made them better than his opponent, and he got the spoils of that.”
As for those unique but efficient backhands:
“I didn’t teach him that. Coach Blue didn’t teach him that. But he’s comfortable enough with it, he’ll pull it out at just about any time he feels like he should,” Wheeler said. “It throws kids off-guard because it’s a really unorthodox swing, and they don’t know what’s going on. A lot of them just sit there and watch it go by because they can’t even believe it. So, he likes to throw a little style in there every now and then, which is fun to watch.”
Also fun to watch: after all those controversial calls throughout the day, Rea won championship point on a forehand winner that even he thought was long — but a deflated Dutter just shrugged and gave it to him.
“It’s pretty funny,” Rea said. “He came up to me and I was like, ‘Wasn’t that out?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, it’s out. I don’t really care, though.’”
The rest of Nevada’s tennis team did not fare as well as Rea, with the Tigers’ only other win coming in doubles with Chosen Reichard’s and Jaden Theis’s 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) opening-round victory over Harrisonville’s Elijah Parris and Garett Peterman. Reichard and Theis lost in the next round to the eventual champions, Lathan Martin and Kyle Pock of Bolivar, before dropping the third-place match to another duo from Harrisonville.
Nevada still has a shot to advance to state as a team, however, with the district team tournament starting on Monday. The Tigers will head to Harrisonville, where the first to five wins in doubles and/or singles will move on to the district championship on Tuesday to face the winner of Bolivar and Clinton.
“After seeing what we’ve seen from Harrisonville, there’s a little bit of a confidence boost,” Wheeler said. “We have a good shot of moving on to the finals in districts next week as a team. That’s good news. We’re in a good spot.”