By: Marc Hardin, prepsports@enquirer.com
Austin Hussey of Covington Catholic returns a serve. Covington Catholic hosted the District finals for Boys Tennis on their brand new courts.
Monday was a day of firsts for the Covington Catholic tennis team in the semifinal round of the Ninth Region boys' championships. The Colonels debuted their new home courts on campus behind the baseball field, and celebrated the occasion by sweeping the singles and doubles semifinals matches for the first time in program history.
"It's a day of firsts on many levels," CovCath coach Al Hertsenberg said. "Having courts at home is huge for us. And this has never ever happened with CovCath having the finalists in both singles and doubles."
Top-seeded Austin Hussey stayed on track for his fourth consecutive regional singles title with a 6-0, 6-0 semifinal win over Nate Doggett of Holy Cross. Hussey, the 2013 state singles champion and last year's runner-up, is a University of Kentucky recruit. The senior hasn't dropped a set this season.
"This is such an awesome facility," said Hussey, whose grandparents are one of the sponsors. "You already have little kids running around wanting to play here, and that might make them want to go to CovCath. Before, we were practicing every where, including peoples' back yards."
Hussey played in front of nearly 200 in attendance Monday, including the first CovCath regional champion, Dave Feighery (1971), who returned to campus to see one of the six courts dedicated in his name. Hussey will face teammate Max Cook in today's 3:30 p.m. singles final. Cook, a freshman, defeated Scott's Cameron Shi, 6-2, 6-0 in the semifinals.
"I think the best thing about the new courts is we can just walk over here from school," Cook said. "We don't have to drive any more."
It will be CovCath vs. CovCath in today's 4:30 p.m. doubles final. Brothers Jake and Jared Haught upset Conner's top-seeded Nate Eberhard and Nick Elleman in a 10-point supertiebreaker in the Monday evening semis to clinch the all-CovCath final. Scores were 7-5, 6-7 (5-7) 1-0 (10-6).
The Haughts will face teammates Anthony Bosch and Blake Heimbrock, who defeated Ryle's Thomas More-bound duo David Geis and Drake Hudak, 6-1, 6-1.
CovCath, which clinched its 14th straight regional team title following the weekend quarterfinals at Boone Woods Park, has a total of 16 points in the standings. Ryle clinched a runner-up finish Monday and totaled nine points. The rest of the points will go to CovCath.
All of Monday's semifinalists earned automatic berths to the state tournaments, May14-16 in Lexington. Champion CovCath advances to the sectional round of the team tournament, hosted by Notre Dame on Saturday. The Colonels will play the 12th Region champion. Saturday's team winner advances to the state semifinals in Lexington.
After one of the Colonels' Monday victories, coach Hertsenberg's father came up to him and said, "It was the home-court advantage." To which the coach replied," For the first time in history, dad." And they both smiled.
Plans for the new facility were first made in 2009. Hertsenberg resigned as CovCath soccer coach that year to help guide the project. Construction wasn't completed until before the start of the season, but they needed a spate of warm days to paint the courts. They were finally ready for play Monday.
"We've practiced at Five Seasons, Summit Hills Country Club and in back yards," Hertsenberg said. The team practiced at Devou Park when Feighery played in the 1970's before tennis courts gave way to golf greens.
"Our numbers in the program went up from about 20 players to 30 and 35, and we needed to something to address it, because that's too many kids to crowd into a back yard," Hertsenberg said. "We built this so we could handle the numbers, and it's going to be a game-changer."