By Mike Ramczyk
Sports Editor
Last week, the Burlington boys tennis squad didn’t advance any flights through to sectionals, signifying the end of the season.
One day after the WIAA subsectionals, head coach Ken Savaglia touched on the subsectionals, the season and the future of Burlington tennis.
At last week’s subsectional, the Demons had a difficult draw with five schools from the tough Classic 8 Conference. Savaglia said the conference has dominated the Southern Lakes in the past few years.
Burlington’s best two efforts came at 1 singles, where Jacob Ludwig fell to Waukesha North’s Ryan Hawkins, 6-3, 6-4, and at 4 singles, where Demon senior Eric Johnson lost, 6-2, 6-4, to Lange of Mukwonago.
“We are in a tough sub, and getting out of it isn’t easy at all,” Savaglia said. “With the seeds we get, it leaves us at a disadvantage from the start. They simply have a few more talented players than we do.”
“Ludwig played well and got a ton of respect from the subsectional coaches, and I look to him to make some noise in the coming years. He has a ton of upside, and if it all pans out he should be one of the top kids in that sub in a year or two.”
Savaglia added that the Demons matched up against many of the tournament’s top seeds from the better schools.
“It would’ve taken a superb effort to get some wins,” Savaglia said. “Kids played really good matches, we saw a lot of growth and we will be OK for the future.”
Savaglia said a large group of juniors will return, and newcomers Ludwig and Andrew Zeman will only get better.
When asked about the overall season, Savaglia said it had its ups and downs.
Burlington opened the season with three dual victories, but the team struggled down the stretch.
“It looked really positive at the start, then we kind of settled into the season and we faded as a team,” Savaglia said.
Individually, Savaglia said Ludwig, Johnson and Spencer Spiewak had pretty good seasons at singles.
“Taking second at the Racine County Invite probably would be considered the highlight of the season,” Savaglia said. “Guys played, won and finished exactly the way I thought they could after I got the draw sheets, and it made for a good middle-of-the-season boost.”
It was only three years ago that as many as 35 kids would come out of high school tennis. Now, it’s down to 20.
“It seems that everyone thinks they should focus on one sport, and kids are booked for everything related to that sport year-round,” Savaglia said. “Burlington is not unique in this, but tennis in the area tends to get hurt by this quite a bit.”
Savaglia said numbers are down throughout the area, but it’s cyclical. What’s missing is the all-around athlete that seeks to try tennis to challenge himself.
“We used to get that student-athlete that enjoyed playing a lot of different things, or the three-sport athlete, it’s just not happening much anymore,” he said. “We don’t live too close to indoor courts, so kids or parents look elsewhere. Hopefully with some young bucks getting some wins, the boys will start coming back and bring back the numbers.”
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