Warsaw’s Hudson Snyder pounds home a shot against Columbia City in the two doubles match Thursday in the Warsaw Boys Tennis Sectional semi-finals. (Photos by Mike Deak)

WARSAW – It’s as if the tournament has seen this before. For the seventh time in the past 10 years, Warsaw and Wawasee will meet in the boys tennis sectional. And for the fourth time in that span, the two will collide in the finals.

Warsaw advanced to the finals with another snappy 5-0 win, this time against Columbia City. In a total match that took just over 70 minutes to complete – and only one court lasted longer than 45 minutes – the Tigers looked prime once again to compete for its fourth straight and 28th sectional championship overall.

Wawasee No. 1 singles Nate Haines rallied to beat Tippecanoe Valley’s Trevor Neeley in a wild three-set match.

Wawasee reached the championship round with a 5-0 win against Tippecanoe Valley that had by far the most dramatic, and time-consuming, match of the day. Wawasee is seeking its first title since 2010, where it beat Warsaw in perhaps one of the bigger upsets in the pantheon of Warsaw-Wawasee tournament matchups.

Warsaw lost just five games to the Eagles in what was a tour de force by its singles trio. The lineup of Chris Herendeen, Colton Lind and Andrew Gauger all shut out their opponents in Dillion Reed, Andrew Jagger and Matthew Kennedy. All three were off the court before several of the doubles courts opened second sets.

David Homme and Justin Stout at No. 1 doubles for Warsaw were nearly as qualified for the party with a one and one win against Dustin Braunsdorf and Garrett Anspach.

In clearly the lone court to have any parity for City was the No. 2 doubles matchup between Braden Baker and Tyler Coyle versus Tiger tandem Hudson Snyder and Spencer Britton. The Tiger duo ran through a 6-1 win in the first set, but gave up several chippies at the net in the second set before recovering for a 6-2 final. The pairing for Warsaw, which only came to be in the past two weeks with Hayden Steger out with an injury, gave Tiger head coach Rick Orban a little to chew on.

“I’m real pleased with how (two doubles) are starting to adapt to each other’s games,” Orban said. “Spencer is extremely fast, he has great ground strokes. He has the instinct to know where his opponents are and is coming along really strong. Hudson is different, he likes to attack the net and hit big winners. These last two days I have wanted to see these two get used to each other and start playing well.”

Cameron Brill of the Wawasee No. 1 doubles team reacts after scoring a point against Tippecanoe Valley.

On the other side of the complex, Wawasee ran through Tippecanoe Valley with a similar ease that of Warsaw. The No. 1 doubles team of Cameron Brill and Tim Conley didn’t play the sharpest match, but found themselves on the plus side of a love and love win against Dakota Parker and Seth Hoffman. The No. 2 doubles group of Evan Krueger and Dylan Staley ran through Eric Wright and Kane Stellar one and one.

Nate Perek also found a similar scoreline at No. 3, beating Nick Caudill one and one while Cal Heinisch at No. 2 defeated Keith Wright two and one.

As the six Warriors vacated the courts to find their warmups, Nate Haines found himself battling for his tournament life. Haines, opposite Trevor Neeley who also knew a loss meant the season was over, turned up the intensity and put on a great show at No. 1 singles. As the spectators all gravitated to the far north corner of the complex, Neeley was building a 7-5 first-set win and jumped up 5-0 in the second set.

Haines built a furious rally, coming all the way back to force a tiebreaker in the second set to tie the set 6-6. In the tiebreaker, Neeley led 5-3 but Haines rallied to five-all. Neeley and Haines split the next two, only for Haines to rush the net and pound away the final two points of the tiebreak and an 8-6 survivor.

Haines jumped out to a 3-2 lead in the third set and maintained his momentum to build a 5-2 lead, breaking Neeley’s serve. A clever shot to Neeley’s weak side put Haines in position and eventually cap a 6-2 win. Haines stays alive with his team and in the individual state push, Neeley’s senior year is over.

“It took forever for me to get used to the wind, and I seemed to settle down when I figured out how to use it,” Haines said. “That second set was all about momentum. I finally got it in my mind to get to the net, and I started going back to it over and over. It started to work.”

Wawasee (6-9 overall) and Warsaw (9-6) will meet at 4:30 p.m. Friday for the sectional crown. The winner will advance to the Culver Academy Regional Tuesday, where it will meet Culver Academy, a 5-0 winner against Knox in the CMA Sectional Thursday afternoon.

Tippecanoe Valley No. 1 singles player Trevor Neeley reaches for a shot against Wawasee’s Nate Haines Thursday.