Columbus tennis competes at HAC tourney, prepares for state
The Columbus High boys tennis team closed out the regular season on Friday at the Heartland Athletic Conference Championships in Lincoln.
As a team, the Discoverers ended up placing ninth.
Senior Joaquin Azurduy Castellanos led the Discoverers with a seventh place finish in the No. 1 singles bracket. Castellanos started the day with a 6-1, 2-6, (10-6) loss to Grand Island's Riley Voss.
Castellanos would then fall 8-5 to Colten Brinegar of Kearney before winning the seventh place match 8-4 over Nice Speidel of Norfolk.
The No. 2 doubles team of Carter Trebac and Calben Pelan would go on to place eighth after beating Fremont's Alejandro Villagomez and Kolby Coon 2-6, 6-4, (10-8) before falling 6-0, 6-0 to Lincoln Southwest's Brady Hung and Edin Mujagic.
Trebac and Pelan would finish the day with an 8-2 loss to Lincoln High's William Brezenski and Henry Hill and a 9-7 defeat in the seventh place match against Kalen Boltz and Nik Parmley of Grand Island.
The No. 1 doubles team and No. 2 singles for Columbus both placed 10th as Callen Jedlicka and Jacob Rother finished 1-2 in doubles play while Matt Krueger went 0-2 in singles matches.
Columbus' final outing of the season begins Monday at the Woods Tennis Center in Lincoln for the NSAA Class A Boys State Tennis Championships.
Castellanos is the only seeded Discoverer, as he is the ninth seed in the No. 1 singles bracket. He will face Braylon Chism of Bellevue West to start.
Brody Splittgerber will compete in the No. 2 singles bracket and he opens against 15 seed Myles Thorpe of Lincoln Northeast.
In doubles play, the No. 1 doubles team of Jedlicka and Rother will face 15 seed Ashton Lamb and Luke Olson of Fremont. Trebac and Pelan will compete as the No. 2 doubles team against Villagomez and Coon of Fremont who are the 16 seed.
Columbus volleyball
The Discoverers traveled to Norfolk to face the Panthers and Columbus High ended up sweeping their rivals 25-19, 25-23, 25-20.
Four Discoverers finished the night with five or more kills as Ayla Janssen led the team with 11 kills. Paighton Erb added eight while Taytum Miller and Grayson Gentile both added five.
Miller finished with a team-high six blocks while Avery Bloebaum led the team with three aces and 13 assists.
With the win, Columbus now sits at 19-8 on the season and the Discoverers will close play before the Heartland Athletic Tournament on Thursday against visiting Lincoln High.
