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Sophomore Carter Hanebutt has emerged as the No. 1 singles player for Alton’s boys tennis team this season. Hannebut, who made the leap to the top spot from No. 6 singles last season, won his opener Thursday in Alton’s 8-1 win over Greenville.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matt Kamp\/Hearst Illinois<\/p>\n
GODFREY – So far, so good for Alton High boys tennis, a team with considerable experience which coach Jesse Macias said is “ready to win.”<\/p>\n
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Alton opened its season Thursday with an 8-1 victory over Greenville at Greenville University.<\/p>\n
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“Our kids were excited to play and it showed,” Macias said. “They hustled all day and locked in on the big points. What a fun way to start the year. Our new guys got got some good wins, our returners were solid. Obviously, Carter\u00a0Hanebutt\u00a0getting a win at one singles and then No. 1 doubles was huge for us.<\/p>\n
“We’re returning four all-conference players, so we feel like we have a lot of experience. Overall, we have 12 players, so our numbers are down a little, but the players we have are ready to win some matches.”<\/p>\n
Thursday, Humphrey, Joe Ventimiglia, Connor Cochran and Griffin Clark joined Hanebutt as singles winners. Ventimiglia teamed with Humphrey for a win at No. 2 doubles and Clark and Cochran won at No. 3 doubles.\u00a0Hanebutt and Tuetken won a close match at No 1 doubles for the doubles sweep.<\/p>\n
“Hanebutt had a good summer and played junior team tennis with Erick Humphrey in the winter,” Macias said. “His consistency has improved and he has learned to take control of points.\u00a0He’s only a sophomore and played No. 6 singles last year, so it is a big jump to No. 1, but he’s put in the work to play No. 1 and deserves to play at the top.”<\/p>\n
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Macias is in his 18th seosn as boys tennis coach and is teams have compiled a 188-140 record. He said familiar faces dot the rest of this season’s Redbirds lineup.<\/p>\n
“Nik Tuetken played No. 2\u00a0 for us last year and he should be back at the same spot,” Macias said. “He played doubles with his brother last season and had a good season for a first-year player. \u00a0He and Carter will play NO. 1\u00a0 doubles.<\/p>\n
“Nik brings good energy to the team and has been a real leader in practice. Erick\u00a0Humphrey has also improved his overall game and will be our No. 3.\u00a0 His serves and ground strokes are better and he’s moving well. \u00a0Our top three are all good athletes and competitive. We’ll rely on their experience.”<\/p>\n
There’s additional returning experience.<\/p>\n
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“At No. 4, we have a senior, Joe\u00a0Ventimiglia, who was also all-conference a year ago. Joe is tough-nosed and works as hard as anyone, but he had an arm injury so he was limited in the off-season. When he is available, he will play number two doubles with Humphrey.”<\/p>\n
Mcias said he has confidence in the rest of the lineup as well.<\/p>\n
“We have a few kids who we can plug in and I’m\u00a0 confident they can all compete,” he said. “Griffin Clark has a great attitude and he’s so much better than last year. \u00a0Everything we wanted him to work on he has and he looks ready for varsity. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“I have been impressed sophomore Connor\u00a0Cochran’s game and attitude. He’s a first-year player as a sophomore and he and (sophomore) Owen Braunndmeier are doing well. They’re learning to extend points and not beat themselves, which is huge in tennis.<\/p>\n
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John\u00a0Pryor, Tyson Nguyen, and Mission Deeyah \u00a0return this year and all should get some varsity time, said Macias, who added that a pair of freshmen, Cash Eades and Joey Henesey, “show a lot of promise.”<\/p>\n
“Joey has been moving up the ladder and could push for top six by the end of the season,” he said. “Overall, I’m happy with the progress, we just have to stay focused in practice and get some match experience.”<\/p>\n
Next up for Alton is the home opener Tuesday with a quad with Roxana, Hillsboro and Belleville Althoff. The Redbirds will then play in the Edwardsville Invite on April 3-4. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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Later this season, Alton will\u00a0 host the Robert Logan Doubles Invitational, play in the Marquette Invite, and travel to Springfield for the JD Sinnock and to Champaign for the Chargers Doubles Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophomore Carter Hanebutt has emerged as the No. 1 singles player for Alton’s boys tennis team this season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[42278,49,48,44,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-564678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-altgame","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}