Boys tennis: Avon looks good at LCAAA ... until rain arrives

AVON — The rain caught up to the Lorain County Athletic Administrators Association tournament's new format before it could be completed. Two of the four doubles flights had finished their matches while the third was midway through before the rain arrived and washed out the final five matches, including the top crossover match at third doubles. The tournament adapted some changes for 2026, notably shifting away from a traditional three singles/two doubles format to a four-flight doubles tournament, allowing an extra player on each team to compete. Because the teams were split into groups and guaranteed five matches, the tournament utilized fast four scoring — sets to four instead of six with no tiebreaker and no-ad scoring, meaning games tied at 40-all will be resolved with a winner take all point. Avon, which fielded both its Varsity A and Varsity B teams, was leading the team competition after sending its entire Varsity A squad to the finals of each draw, winning the first and second doubles competition. The Eagles' first doubles team of Aarav Kishorepuria and Blake Netschke took on Amherst's Kaitlyn Bussard and Marie Schneider in the championship, prevailing 4-1, 4-1. Avon's second doubles team of Grant Nagy and Caleb Free defeated Avon Lake's Caleb Johnson and Jack Tobin 4-1, 4-3 in their final. "It feels great," Kishorepuria said. "It was great to switch it up a little and play doubles. I love playing doubles with this dude, Blake. We've been training for it. It was a really fun time to play doubles and it feels really good to get our first win. I like the new format, especially how we split it up between our courts and Avon Lake's courts." Jaxen Springer and Bidwat Mishra faced Amherst's Carter Crawford and Sam Bennett at third doubles with the Comets on the verge of winning before the rain halted the match at 4-2, 3-1. The Amherst duo won all four of their group matches. Avon's Ashton Schwanger and Carter Free were just starting the first set of their fourth doubles final against Elyria's Jon Turner and Lukas Manholt when the rain poured down. The schools face in Southwestern Conference play Wednesday and might attempt to complete their final at that time. First doubles featured a matchup of the top two singles players on Avon and Amherst, respectively. Bussard, a freshman, was paired with Schneider, a junior foreign exchange student from Germany. Avon secured a break to go up 3-1 and then served out the set on the next game, but needed to hold off Amherst's rally after it forced deuce by fighting away two set points. The second set opened with three straight breaks of serve thanks largely to the windy conditions. Amherst again came out on the wrong end of the no-ad scoring format as all three games went to deuce with Avon taking two of them. Kishorepuria secured the only hold of the set without dropping a point and Avon again won at deuce to secure a break and the set at 4-1. "I like the format," Netschke said. "It suits our game really well, just knowing that we need just one point and that's it. The wind can be hard, but we're really good at working around it. We just played our game the way we know how." Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.