Tennis coach Joyce Allen got a text last Saturday at 6:30 a.m. The Manhattan High School varsity boys team’s scheduled meet, the Junction City Invitational, had been cancelled.

“The kids were kind of happy with prom [being that same day]. It would have been a tough day to sit and have a delay,” Allen said. “You don’t want to sit all day and wait to play. Balls won’t bounce if they’re wet and there was no way they were going to get in that big of a tournament in time.”

“It was unfortunate that it was cancelled because we wanted to improve our records for Regionals,” junior Bryan Armbrust said.

At the Salina South Invitational last Thursday, MHS pulled through to take first place out of eight teams. Singles players sophomore Bryce Easton and Armbrust placed first and sixth respectively. Juniors Collin Queal and Kirkland Lambert played doubles and took first while senior Camden Adams and junior Carter Nelson took ninth.

“It feels good [having won as many matches as we’ve won]. It shows how deep our team is — having everyone place decently,” Armbrust said. “Abilene had really good singles. Bryce had a really good win against their No. 2 singles players; he won 8-4 but it was pretty close. My first lost was to the No. 1 Abilene player. They were really good.”

Queal and Lambert beat 5A State runner-ups to add to an overall total of 12 wins and zero losses.

“I’m constantly impressed. Their level of commitment just astounds me,” Allen said. It’s been fun and the boys have done really well. We’re trying to reach our goals and feel good about what they’re accomplished. I’m really proud of them and what they’ve done. But we have a hectic two days; we go Monday and Tuesday. It’s coming down to crunch-time. League is a week from tomorrow and Regionals is a week from Saturday so the season’s coming to an end. I am feeling really bittersweet, but right now I’m happy with what they’re doing.”

With multiple tournament wins, the team has big goals and big expectations.

“We’d like to win the meet tomorrow. We’d like to win the meet Tuesday. We’d like to beat Olathe Northwest on Saturday or at least play them better than we did last year. We’d like to win League. We’d like to win Regionals and we’d like to do better at State. Those are our goals. Whether they will be achieved, I don’t know. It’s going to take a concentrated effort on everybody’s part…but I think they’re achievable,” Allen said.

The team played all day in Topeka Monday and will play in the Emporia Quad today.