By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
High school tennis players clinched berths in the boys state tournament by winning 9th Region quarterfinal matches on Tuesday and the opening round of lacrosse and boys volleyball state tournaments will be taking place Wednesday.
At the boys region tennis tournament, the final four in both singles and doubles advance to the state tournament to be played May 27-29 at the University of Kentucky. The region semifinal matches are scheduled to be played Wednesday with the championship finals set for Thursday at Covington Catholic.
The singles matches at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday will be CovCath senior Alex Yeager vs. Beechwood junior Neel Reddy and Villa Madonna junior Shayaan Ahmad vs. Ryle junior Navneeth Selvaraju. Yeager is the top seed and Ahmad is No. 2 in the bracket.
The first doubles semifinal match at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday will be William Tribble-Jacob Kramer of CovCath vs. Griffen Derry-Collin McClure of Dixie Heights. Top-seeds Kalei Christensen-Blake Hussey of CovCath will then play the winner of a quarterfinal match that was postponed by rain Tuesday.
Ryle won the 6th Region championship in boys volleyball and will play a home match against Louisville Trinity in the first round of the state tournament at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
The 5th Region champions in lacrosse were the Dixie Heights boys and Notre Dame girls. Both of those teams will host state tournament matches at 7 p.m. Wednesday with Notre Dame playing South Oldham and Dixie Heights taking on North Oldham.
In the boys region final, Dixie Heights got six goals from junior attacker Aiden Wood during a 16-11 win over Ryle. Notre Dame defeated Cooper, 16-8, in the girls region final to run its record to a best-ever 15-1.
The other lacrosse state tournament matches scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday include Cooper at Oldham County in girls and Ryle at South Oldham in boys. This is the first year that lacrosse and boys volleyball have been state sanctioned sports in Kentucky.
Basketball scoring leader makes college choice
Aaron Gutman, the all-time leading scorer in the Walton-Verona boys basketball program, has made a commitment with the University of Evansville in Indiana.
Last season, Gutman was the top scorer in Northern Kentucky boys basketball with a 23.3 average. He finished his varsity career with 2,050 points to break a team record set in 1958.
The 6-foot-7 guard also averaged a team-high 6.8 rebounds for the Bearcats, who won the 8th Region All “A” Classic, made it to the semifinals of the 8th Region post-season tournament and finished with a 21-13 record.
Gutman was named co-winner of the 8th Region Player of the Year award for seniors. He will finish his high school career playing for the Kentucky All-Stars team in a two-game series against Indiana’s top seniors on June 6-7.
Evansville is an NCAA Division I program and member of the Missouri Valley Conference. The Purple Aces posted an 11-21 record last season after losing in the first round of the conference tournament.
State champion distance runner adds to resume
Covington Catholic senior Will Sheets was a dual winner in the 1-mile and 1600-meter events at the Mason (Ohio) Invitational on Friday that included some of the top high school distance runners in three states.
Sheets’ winning times were 4:07.48 for 1600 meters in 4:09.03 for 1 mile. Six days earlier, he won the annual Kentucky Dream Mile in 4:07.23, the fourth fastest time ever recorded by a Kentucky high school runner for that distance.
Those are the latest editions to an impressive running career that Sheets will continue at the University of Virginia. He won the 2022 Class 3A state cross country championship and placed second in the 2024 Class 2A state meet.
In track, he has received three gold and five silver medals competing in outdoor and indoor state championship meets. He holds CovCath school records for the fastest times in the 800, 1600 and 3200 runs.
Sheets has been named Gatorade Kentucky Athlete of the Year in cross country twice. At last year’s Nike Indoor Track Championships, he placed fifth in the 5,000-meter run to earn All-America honors.