Discovery Canyon’s Nick Lorenz during the 2015 4A state tennis tournament. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
In 2014, the Discovery Canyon boys tennis team walked away from the Class 4A state championships scoring a total of zero team points.
Last season, they scored 27. And the Thunder believes it can do better this year.
It’s not hard to see that on the boys tennis scene, Discovery Canyon is quite simply the next big thing. Not bad for a school that only opened back in 2008.
It opened only two years after the club at Flying Horse which is where most of the Thunder’s players grew to love the game and adopt it as their fall sport of choice.
“All of these of these kids that we have had in the program (at the club) are starting to come into high school,” coach Mike Humphrey said. “These are kids that are putting a lot of time in themselves in traveling to tournaments.”
And the results are paying off quickly once those kids are hitting the course.
The Thunder’s top three players all advanced to at least the semifinal matches. Freshman Nick Lorenz came the closest to reaching gold as he fell in the No. 1 singles final match. Kent Denver’s Casey Ross, a junior, got the better of Lorenz 6-3, 6-1 to claim the title.
The Sun Devils also came away with the team championship last fall.
Looking back on last year’s result, Lorenz knows that there is plenty of work to do both physically and mentally if he wants to stand in the first place spot on the podium.
“Casey’s a really good player too and he’s getting better as well,” Lorenz said. “I know I’m going to have to have the mindset that I can win if I’m going to him.”
But unlike any competition he sees outside of the school season, the results of his matches don’t just factor into his standing, but his teammates’ as well.
The bulk of the Thunder’s team points last year came in all the singles brackets. Dustin Bohuslavschi advanced to the No. 2 singles semis before falling and Tanner Jones made it just as far in the No. 3 singles bracket.
In order for Discovery Canyon to continue it’s upward trend, those three returning players will have to continue their run of success and rely on each other in order to obtain some hardware at the end of the season.
“It’s more pressure than USTA tournaments, which are all individual,” Lorenz said. “But it’s more fun playing for a team.”
Kent Denver has firmly been in control of 4A tennis for the last three seasons. The Sun Devils finished with 89 points last year, 17 better than Colorado Academy who came in second.
Then there was a huge gap for third place as Niwot totaled 35 points. The Thunder finished fourth with their 27, of which 26 came from their singles players.
Discovery Canyon has put itself on the map, and now it’s time to try and earn its place with the state’s top programs.
“The strength of a team is in the depth of a team,” Humphrey said. “It’s getting our doubles players playing more and taking tennis to that next level of what they’re doing now. Just getting those kids to play a little more, getting those touches on the ball so that they’re more adept to playing tennis and being in situations that they usually aren’t in.”
If Humphrey can do that and his singles players can maintain or exceed their current level of success, Colorado high school tennis could find itself in the middle of a nasty Thunderstorm.
Boys tennis preview
Class 4A
- Defending state champion: Kent Denver
- Regular season begins: Aug. 18
- Regional tournaments: Oct. 8
- State tournament: Oct. 13-15, Pueblo City Park Tennis Complex
- Returning all-state players: Nick Lorenz, So., Discovery Canyon; Jack Moldenhauer, Jr., Kent Denver; Casey Ross, Sr., Kent Denver; Brendan Schwartz, Sr., Colorado Academy; Garrett Sutter, Sr., Colorado Academy
Class 5A
- Defending state champion: Cherry Creek
- Regular season begins: Aug. 18
- Regional tournaments: Oct. 8
- State tournament: Oct. 13-15, Gates Tennis Center in Denver
- Returning all-state players: Luca Abbott, Sr., Regis Jesuit; David Glazer, Sr., Denver East; Ryan James, Sr., Cherry Creek; Mitchell Johnson, Jr., Cherry Creek; Ben Murray, Jr., Cherry Creek; Erich Nuss, Sr., Regis Jesuit; Patrick Seby, Jr., Regis Jesuit; Kap Smith, Jr., Boulder