Von Krosigk headed to state tournament

For the first time in Kaci Mathews coaching career, a Tippecanoe boys tennis player has qualified for the Division One state tennis tournament. Junior Nick Von Krosigk had two big wins last Thursday to qualify him for this weekend's state meet.

“Nick set himself some goals which have been progression goals from when he was a young kid,” Matthews said. “Coming into his freshman year, he didn't understand the game of high school tennis, but had to get his feet wet. It opened his eyes to what it is all about competing for a team.”

“He broke a lot of personal goals as a sophomore, but one that remained elusive was a district qualifying match. In my eleven years, that ceiling has never been broken. His goal going into this season was to get to that match and overcome it.”

“He has a great team around him who has got him to this point. He was physically more than capable, but had to overcome that goal that had eluded us as Tipp. This has been a 14-year journey to get to this point.”

Von Krosigk opened his day at Centerville with a dominant 6-0, 6-1 victory over Leo Qin of Mason High School to head into the qualifying match.

“Nick was the #1 seed coming out of sectional and knew we would draw a #4 and didn't know too much about him,” Matthews said. “Nick went in with laser focus and played his game.”

“He figured it out and set himself up as a very smart tennis player, finding the weaknesses of his opponent.”

Von Krosigk then survived a marathon that lasted nearly three hours, with the Tipp junior defeating Abi Dinesh of Cincinnati Sycamore 6-4, 4-6, 6-2. That set him up for the final four, which came after the holiday deadline, but Von Krosigk had already qualified for the state meet regardless of that outcome.

“I am really proud of him, going into that third set he was down 0-1,” Matthews said. “He came off the court and was down on himself. I told him you can either roll over or say, ‘I know how to break this guy’ and play one point at a time.”

“He pressured every point and got the job done. It takes a very mature and confident player to get the job done.”

“We had the entire Dayton community cheering him on, including Troy and the other schools, who celebrated with him. I can't say enough about the tennis community. It shows the respect he has among his colleagues.”

For the Red Devils tennis player, he accomplished something that Matthews said was an achievement that will go down in Tippecanoe tennis history.

“The reality is it can be done, and it has been a while since Tipp has done it,” Matthews said. “The belief is we now have someone in our program who gives the rest of them a chance that it is believable.”

The state tournament is being held at Wooster University tomorrow morning. Whoever qualifies through tomorrow, the finals will be on Friday.