Eagle tennis blanks Neosho

After two straight losses by a single match each, Joplin’s boys tennis team got back on the winning track with a 9-0 defeat of Neosho on Thursday at Joplin High School.

The Eagles No. 1 doubles team of Sejong Kim and Taylor Schlag logged an 8-0 win over Neosho’s Jude Horn and Jesus Serrano Martinez.

Joplin’s Jack Delman and Lewis Jackson claimed an 8-1 win over Evan Hymer and Luis Valdez Mendoza, and the Eagles’ No. 3 team, Adan Villanueva Reyes and Nicolas Brady, posted an 8-2 win over Kyson Bornhoft and Billy Russell.

Kim blanked Horn 8-0 in the No. 1 singles match and Schlag was also perfect in an 8-0 win over Serrano Martinez. In the No. 3 singles match, Delman defeated Hymer 8-1. Jackson shut out Bornhoft 8-0 in the No. 4 singles match. The No. 5 singles match saw Joplin’s Emerson Eminger beat Neosho’s Valdez Mendoza 8-1. Villanueva Reyes made it a clean sweep for the Eagles when he defeated Neosho’s Russell 8-0 in the No. 6 singles match.

The Eagles (6-3) seemed to have gelled this season, despite losing four of their top players to graduation.

“At the beginning of our season, we had long and intense practices to try and get them into tennis shape,” Joplin head coach Ben Coltharp said. “We tried to set an expectation and a tone. We had such a successful season last year and the year before that. We wanted it to be business as usual, continuing with that process.”

Coltharp said his kids’ mental toughness and athleticism have been their primary strengths.

“We give 100%, and you can see it in a lot of our matches and a lot of our points,” Coltharp said.

The team is buoyed by the addition of Kim, who transferred from Florida to Joplin and is in the No. 1 spot for the Eagles.

“He’s been a great help to the team, not only skillwise but as a great leader and a great kid,” Coltharp said.

Neosho is 0-8 on the season.

The Eagles are hosting the Joplin Interstate Tournament, with 16 teams including several from the Kansas City area.

The tournament, played out over multiple sites such as the Joplin Athletic Complex, Millennium Tennis and Missouri Southern State University, began with pool play Friday. With four teams in each pool, the top two from each pool advance to the champions bracket, and the bottom two will compete in the challengers bracket Saturday.