Prep highlights: Fowlerville wins first regional tennis championship
Fowlerville is heading to the state tennis tournament as a team for the third time in program history, but this time the Gladiators earned some nice bling along the way.
Fowlerville won its first regional championship and the first by a Livingston County team in 17 years, scoring 15 points to beat runner-up DeWitt by two. Haslett was third with 12 and Mason was fourth with 10. All four teams qualified for the state Division 3 tournament next Friday and Saturday at Mason.
The Gladiators qualified for two other state tournaments as a team, but made it on points in 2013 and by placing second in 2016.
They are the first Livingston County team to win a regional championship since Brighton won three in a row from 2003-05 and the county’s first state-qualifying team since Pinckney in 2019.
This year’s team set a program record by winning 17 matches, going 17-1-3. The one loss was a 5-3 decision to DeWitt on Aug. 30. The Gladiators tied Mason, 4-4, on Sept. 15 and finished tied for third behind Mason and Haslett in the CAAC Red meet on Sept. 29.
“Going in, we definitely were not the favorite,” Fowlerville coach Jim Jonas said. “If the seeds held up, it would have been Mason 14, us, Haslett and DeWitt with 12. We pulled a couple upsets. We played really well. Even when we lost, we were beaten by better teams at the time.”
Jonas knew he had a competitive team, but not to this extent.
“We had a lot of pieces back from last year and we have some really good athletes who picked up tennis last year,” he said. “They spent last year on JV, but you could see them growing every day. The offseason work was just phenomenal, easily 15, 16 kids at every workout in the offseason. So, we were cautiously optimistic going into the season we could have a special year. I never dreamed about winning a regional.”
Fowlerville won three of the four doubles flights. The Gladiators won regional championships at No. 2 doubles with juniors Griffin Gonzalez and Dillon Wieas, No. 3 doubles with junior Mike Hatfield and sophomore Ethan Way, and No. 4 doubles with sophomore Ben Durbin and freshman Grant Wilkinson.
Senior Alex Jonas and junior Oliver Farmer took second at No. 1 doubles.
Singles players Lucas Anderson (No. 1), Cole Sova (No. 2), Mason Munsell (No. 3) and Ryder Lukasik (No. 4) reached the semifinals.
Anderson won his first-round match and is now 20-5 this season. He boosted his school-record career victory total to 65.
“Every flight won at least one match for us,” Jonas said. “Every other team had a zero somewhere.”
Soccer
Hartland 1, Northville 1
Both goals were scored 10 seconds apart in the final minute of the first half.
Hartland scored first when Garrett Woodbury buried a deflection off a free kick by Clayton Hartwick with 19 seconds left in the half. Northville (11-2-4) scored off a free kick 10 seconds later.
Hartland is 2-0-3 in its last five games, getting results against No. 10 Salem (a 3-1 victory) and No. 9 Northville. The Eagles started the season 1-8-2.
“We’re hanging tough; no losses in our last five,” Hartland coach Andrew Kartsounes said. “That’s a big change from where we were earlier in the season. I think we’re playing better. It’s coming together right at the end of the season, which is a good time to do it.”
Brighton 3, Howell 1
Connor Blood, Owen Buckley and Ethan Cassar scored first-half goals for Brighton, which beat Howell for the 14th straight time in a preview of a first-round district matchup.
The Bulldogs (6-6-4) will host Howell (0-16-1) at 6 p.m. Thursday to begin postseason play.
Pinckney 5, Grass Lake 2
Pinckney concluded the regular season with a 12-2-1 record, taking down a Grass Lake team that had a 9-2 record.
Owen Keene had two goals and one assist, Tyler Beckwith had one goal and one assist, and Reese Elmy and Jake Prince each had one goal for the Pirates.
Pinckney will begin its quest for its first district championship since 1999 with a district semifinal matchup against Adrian or Tecumseh at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 18 at Mason. Pinckney has beaten each team twice by at least four goals.
Cross country
Apples to Apples
Freshman Taylor Wiegand set Livingston Christian’s school record with an eighth-place time of 21:19.6 in the small school race at Uncle John’s Cider Mill in St. Johns.
Wiegand, a state qualifier last year while in eighth grade, broke the record of 21:49.7 set by Lillian Stiles in the DeWitt regional on Oct. 30, 2020.
Audrey Johnson was 19th (24:09.1) and Ezrielle Martin 20th (24:11.7) for the Falcons, who were fourth out of six teams.
Golf
Division 3, Regional 16
Fowlerville junior Raya Goulding placed 25th out of 51 golfers with a 97.
Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillKhan.
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Prep highlights: Fowlerville wins first regional tennis championship
