Oklahoma high school boys tennis: Edmond North, Crossings Christian win 2024 state titles
The 2024 Oklahoma high school boys tennis state tournament ended Saturday at OKC Tennis Center.
This year interestingly included domination by non-Tulsa area schools as all three state champions — Edmond North, Crossings Christian and Ada — hail from closer to the central part of the state. It’s often the complete opposite.
Metro Christian was the only Tulsa area school that placed in the top two, and all but one of the singles and doubles champions were from schools west of Tulsa.
The only Tulsa area player who claimed a championship was Jenks sophomore Krishna Bhadriraju, who beat Westmoore sophomore Trenton Kanchanakomtorn 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the Class 6A No. 1 singles championship.
Here are some takeaways from Saturday.
More: Oklahoma high school tennis boys state championship results
Edmond North claims Class 6A championship
The Edmond North boys tennis team had a lot of new faces this season.
Four of the Huskies’ top six players are freshmen, and coach Duncan Fugitt knew this would be a different team than he's used to having.
He also understood he had incredible talent.
And on Friday and Saturday at OKC Center Tennis Center, the Class 6A Huskies proved their lack of high school experience wouldn’t get in the way of them achieving their season goal.
Edmond North won its 11th boys tennis crown and first since 2019. The Huskies finished with 29 points, while Edmond Memorial placed second with 26 and Heritage Hall and Jenks followed with 18.
Edmond North’s two doubles teams each claimed championships, capping dominant seasons. They both finished undefeated as junior Jack Franklin and senior Dylan Rainwater claimed the No. 1 doubles crown and freshmen Noah Gou and Levi Solomon won the No. 2 doubles title.
“They’ve been really strong all year, but it’s still hard to win even when you’re expected to win because everyone’s taking their best shot at you,” Fugitt said.
In the finals, Franklin and Rainwater faced Heritage Hall seniors Gray Ferguson and Emerson Ritenour, who won the Class 5A No. 1 doubles title last year and the No. 2 doubles crown as freshmen. The Edmond North duo won 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 and finished the season with a 26-0 record.
Gou and Solomon finished 22-0 and blew past everyone they played.
“Didn’t lose a set all year,” Fugitt said. “I mean they just had a phenomenal year. And truthfully we had two very good doubles teams. I think we could have probably put either of our guys at one or two doubles and they would have been very strong.”
Freshman JP Huston also had a solid tournament for Edmond North.
He entered the No. 2 singles championship undefeated before losing to Edmond Memorial sophomore Eli Lemley 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-4.
Fugitt was proud of his whole team Saturday.
“They’re great individual players, but some of them are asked to play doubles, some of them are asked to play different positions than they might be used to,” he said. “I was just really proud of how they accepted their roles. They all played their roles really well.”
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Crossings Christian wins second straight title
After winning the Class 4A title last year, Crossings Christian moved up to Class 5A.
New players to go against. New teams to face.
But in the end, it was the same result for the Knights.
Crossings Christian won the Class 5A championship as it finished with 31 points to place ahead of Bishop McGuinness (24) and Duncan (19).
Crossings Christian sophomore JP Dillon claimed the No. 2 singles title, while senior Zander Nelson and sophomore Sumner Shapard won the No. 1 doubles crown.
“We came into this season just with kind of hopes to not have a championship dropoff,” Crossings Christian coach Jamie Wheat said. “We wanted to come in focused and ready to work hard and knew it was going to be a challenge going up to 5A. Our guys just bought in together and just put in the work and were all about the team first.”
Wheat was impressed with his team’s camaraderie this season.
He’s led Crossings Christian to titles in three of the last four years, and two of those championships were in Class 5A.
“Our guys just were a whole other level of team chemistry this year,” Wheat said. “It was just a brotherhood from the get-go based off of what we had accomplished last year.”
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Bishop McGuinness’ TJ Shanahan wins first title
TJ Shanahan claimed the No. 1 singles title in Class 5A, the first of his career.
A sophomore from Bishop McGuinness, he defeated Tulsa Holland Hall senior Porter Arens 5-7, 6-2, 6-3 in the championship.
Shanahan was the runner-up last year.
Nick Sardis covers high school sports for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Nick? He can be reached at nsardis@oklahoman.com or on Twitter at @nicksardis. Sign up for The Varsity Club newsletter to access more high school coverage. Support Nick's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Edmond North, Crossings Christian win boys tennis state titles
