Tennis Tigers start strong with tournament championship

The Republic tennis team couldn’t have started its season any better than it did against Mt. Vernon, Monett and Clever. Not only did the Tigers win Mt. Vernon Tournament championships in all nine flights — three doubles and six singles — they did it without losing a match all day. It’s the first time in history that Republic has swept through a tournament without dropping a single match.
Republic’s fast perfect happened even with an inexperienced lineup, after the Tigers graduated five of its varsity starters from last season’s team. Only junior Isaac Jordan is back as a varsity starter.
Republic followed up its perfect day in Mt. Vernon with a win in its home opener against Springfield Central. Republic won 6-3, taking all three doubles matches, then following that up with wins in four of the six doubles matches.
Kile Thornhill played a key role in the victory, con- tributing to two tiebreaker wins. Thornhill teamed with Isaac Jordan to beat Cen- tral’s Sage Riddle and Alex Shunyakov 9-8 (8-6) in their doubles match. Thornhill followed it up with a 9-8 (7-4) win over Bryan Liu at #4 singles.
The win over Springfield Central improved Republic’s record to 4-0.