The De Soto varsity tennis squad went down to Ottawa's tournament and won the event as a team, placing first in No. 1 singles and doubles and No. 2 singles. It was the third consecutive year the team had done so.

It was nothing out of the ordinary right? Wrong - this time De Soto can hang a banner.

Before this year, the Frontier League had no league tournament. Having six boys tennis teams in a league of twelve schools meant the league couldn't officially recognize a league champion.

Then the league restructured last year and six of the ten schools have boys tennis. One team over 50 percent means a league champion can officially be crowned, and the Wildcats claimed that crown Tuesday in convincing fashion.

"This year it's probably a little extra special," coach Michael Sullivan said. "The guys are pretty proud that they can put up a banner in the gym under league champions and I think that's something they are going to be proud of."

In doing so the Wildcats were led by the play of their two singles players.

Sophomore Andrew Konetzni and junior Matt Edwards both swept their divisions of the round-robin formatted tournament, going 5-0. The field never challenged either of the two throughout the day.

"Singles-wise, it was kind of what we were expecting," Sullivan said. "Andrew and Matt, they're just a lot more experienced than some of the other guys that play singles in the league."

Brendon Hudson and Trevor Elmer, the No. 1 doubles team, also went 5-0 and finished first in the league. The most meaningful of the team's matches, at least in Sullivan's eyes, were wins over Paola, 8-6, and Gardner, 8-6, teams that beat Hudson and Elmer earlier in the year.

"Them getting wins there, that's going to give them quite a bit of confidence going into the tail end of the season and going into the postseason," Sullivan said.

Matt L'Ecuyer, the lone senior on the team, and sophomore Joe Dvorak finished the day tied for third at 2-3 in No. 2 doubles.

The tandem lost its first three matches to Ottawa, Gardner and Paola before defeating Baldwin and Spring Hill. L'Ecuyer and Dvorak won the second match in a tiebreaker, and Sullivan was happy with how they bounced back.

"They were kind of up and down in the first three, since they're kind of new as partners, they're still feeling each other out a bit," he said. "But they closed out strong."

Next up, the Wildcats have a make-up tournament, the Paola Round Robin, at 3:00 p.m. Thursday. Four of the teams that participated in the league tourney will play in the Paola Round Robin.