Seibel ends season in state quarterfinals, Elston and LeJeune lose opening round match to Columbus Academy

Compiled by Gary R. Rasberry

Celina's Alex Seibel had the longest match of the opening round at the Division II boys tennis singles tournament, and he fought through two tiebreakers to win the match Friday at The Ohio State University.

The Celina senior's season ended, though, in the quarterfinals as he could not win a game against Cincinnati Country Day's J.J. Wolf.

Seibel opened the tournament against Jason Prince of Proctorville Fairland. Seibel started out strong, jumping out to a 3-1 lead in the first set before Prince came back to tie it at 5-5 before Seibel won the last two games to take the opening set 7-5.

In the second set, Seibel was up 5-0 before Prince charged back again at 5-5. Seibel took the next game, but Prince came back to make it 6-6 and force the tiebreaker. Prince won the tiebreaker 7-3 to even the match.

The back-and-forth play continued in the final set, but this time Seibel came back from down 2-5 to tie it and force the tiebreaker. This time, the NetDog came away victorious with an 8-6 tiebreak win to take the match 7-5, 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (8-6).

"He saved two match points and came back and won the tiebreaker," Celina coach Toma Hainline said. "That just shows the heart that he has. Very proud of the effort."

Seibel next faced Ford, a freshman who was the runner-up out of the Southwest District. Ford dominated the match, winning 6-0, 6-0 to advance to this morning's semifinals.  Celina's doubles team of Isaac Elston and Kris LeJeune faced off against the Central District championship team of Evan Alexander and Dean Firouzian of Columbus Academy, losing 2-6, 3-6 to end the season.

"I thought we could have done a little better," Hainline said. "(The Columbus Academy team) was a little bigger. We made some unforced errors that we typically don't make. There was some nerves."