McCollum wins tourney

MISSOULA — The Mission boys and girls both went to Missoula for a healthy sampling of tournament tennis on Saturday - the boys at the Loyola Invitational at Playfair Park and the girls at the Best of the West tourney on the UM campus.

For the Bulldogs, the story was at singles, where senior Wyatt McCollum and Spencer Ahlborn earned their way to a championship bout against each other.

McCollum bested his teammate in the battle, 6-0, 6-0.

To get there, both players had to stay focused.

“They both played smart tennis and had goals in their mind of what they wanted to do,” Mission head coach Kimimi Ashley said.

Spencer took down Loyola’s No. 1 seed to start off the day.

“He had dug himself a small hole at the beginning, but then adjusted his game a little bit and got into his opponent’s head and was able to gain control for the win of 8-6,” Ashley said.

The next two matches were no sweat, downing Conrad’s No. 2 and 3 hitters 8-1 and 8-4.

McCollum won most of his matches cleanly, the exception being a long battle against Loyola’s No. 3 seed.

“It wasn’t so much a skill challenge that met him, but Wyatt had a mental history against his opponent and sometimes that is harder to defeat than actually playing the game. But, Wyatt dug in at the end and focused on one point at a time to achieve the end goal and came out the winner at 9-7.”

Mission doubles pair Ty McCollum and Marius Eck finished fourth after a loss to Troy’s top hitters stuck them in the third-fourth place match.

“Troy’s experience as a team gave Ty and Marius a look at some of the things that they will be working on this week to contend at State,” Ashley said.

At the Best of the West tourney, the Lady Bulldog pair of Anna Fehrs and Sarah Bowers also took fourth. Mission’s top double contenders went 2-1 on the day but forced their opponents to three sets in both losses.

  This coming week is what counts for the duo, as with the other top Mission hitters.

“Anna and Sarah are looking good for their goal of bringing home a first place at divisionals this weekend,” Ashley said.

The Mission boys also set a precedent, with two singles players beating out all of the state competition from their division except Cutbank.

Mission plays on Friday and Saturday at the Class B-C Divisional tournament in Troy.