BARSTOW KNIGHTS DOUBLES TEAMS HEADED TO STATE!

For the third time in the last six years and the second time in two years, the Barstow boys tennis team had BOTH doubles entries advance to the District  Finals in the individual tournament.  Advancing to the finals guarantees the individual trip to the State Championships.  Last year in CLASS 2 and this year again after being bumped up to Missouri's largest tennis class, CLASS 3 both doubles teams faced off in the finals.  `

First, in singles, Shayan Ahmed played well all day in the tough singles draw.  Facing a strong first-round opponent from Lee's Summit West,  Shayan rolled to a 6-3 win in the first set, fell behind early in the second, and battled back with strong and consistent groundstrokes and a solid serve for a 6-4 win in the second.

In the doubles, the #3 seeded Barstow duo of Liam Groden and Sanjeev Adma beat a solid Lee's Summit pair, cruised to a 6-2 win in the first set, then had to fight it out for a 7-5 victory in the second.  In the all-important semifinal, the guys faced the #2 Lee's Summit West team.  With their best net play of the year, Liam and Sanjeev cut off service returns and heavy groundstrokes to pull out a close 7-5 first set.  They fell behind 4-5, 15-40 in the second set but managed to pull even to 5-5 and finish the match with four perfect first serves and follow-up finish volleys for a 7-5, 7-5 win. 

Senior Sunny Gandhari and freshman Saam Biria played well as the #1 seed.   After a bye in the first round, Sunny and Saam cruised to a 6-1, 6-0 win against Ray-Pec then took on a solid team from Rockhurst.  The boys started out slowly at first 2-2, but then behind Saam's strong ground strokes and Sunny's net play, ran off 4 games in a row for a 6-3 first-set win.  Behind consistent serving, solid returns and by winning the majority of back-and-forth net exchanges the Knights secured their spot in the finals with a 6-2 second set finish.  

That set up the ALL-BARSTOW final against Liam and Sanjeev.  Liam and Sanjeev took an early 3-2 lead, but Saam and Sunny grabbed the momentum and held their seed for the District Doubles Championship a win 6-4, 6-1.  After a long, exhausting day of doubles, all four will now move on to Springfield in the individual State Doubles Tournament.  This will be Sunny's fourth trip to Springfield in four years, once as part of the state championship TEAM, the others as both team and individual.