By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Covington Catholic senior Jake Haught dropped his tennis racquet and hugged his younger brother, Jarod, after they won the 9th Region boys’ doubles championship match on Wednesday at CovCath.
When Jake saw his mother standing at one end of the court, he was unable to hold back his tears as he walked over and wrapped his arms around her.
It was an emotional moment for the Haught brothers following a 7-6, 7-6 (7-5) win over Conner seniors Nate Eberhard and Nick Elleman in a tension-packed championship match that lasted more than two hours.
“I’m happy for both guys, but I’m especially happy for Jake after being runner-up twice in the past,” said CovCath coach Al Hertsenberg. “For them to beat a really good Conner team is quite a feat because this wasn’t really a No. 1 seed against a No. 2 seed. They were more like 1-A and 1-B they were that close.”
Jake lost in the regional doubles final as a sophomore with a different partner. Last year, he and his younger brother teamed up and they also placed second.
The Haught brothers were determined to take the title in their final season together, but they had a tough time attaining that goal against the Conner doubles team.
After CovCath jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first set, Conner won the next four games to go ahead, 5-4. With their backs to the wall, the Haught brothers were able to hold serve in the next game and then win two more to take the set.
“We just never gave up,” said Jarod, a junior this year. “We know everybody’s going to make mistakes, but you can always come back.”
In the second set, Conner took a 4-1 lead and CovCath came back once again to tie it at 4-4. Both teams held serve after that to make the score 6-6. CovCath then won the match, 7-5, in a tiebreaker.
“We just had to pull ourselves together,” Jake said of rallying from a 4-1 deficit in the second set. “We knew we could come back like they did in the first set. We just couldn’t get mad and show them that to give them confidence.”
In the boys’ singles final, CovCath junior Anthony Bosch defeated his sophomore teammate Max Cook, 6-2, 6-2.
After playing on a regional champion doubles team for the Colonels last year, Bosch moved into the No. 1 singles spot following the graduation of CovCath’s four-time regional champion Austin Hussey.
“He played doubles last year to help the team and it sort of hid him from the rest of the region,” Hertsenberg said of Bosch. “They didn’t realize how good he was (at singles) until now.”
CovCath also won the 9th Region team title for the 15th consecutive year with a 3-0 win over Villa Madonna in the championship final.
This is the first year that tennis teams competed in a regional bracket format. In the past, the team champion was determined by awarding points for each victory in the singles and doubles tournaments.
CovCath earned a berth in the first-ever 16-team state tournament that will be played this weekend. The Colonels will face the 12th Region champion in a first-round match at 9 a.m. Saturday at Shillito Park in Lexington.
In addition to handing out team trophies and medals after the boys’ regional final, local coaches presented the Sportsmanship Award to Villa Madonna senior David Gibson.
The 9th Region girls’ finals were also played Wednesday and new champions were crowned in both singles and doubles at Five Seasons Country Club.
Dixie Heights senior Brooke Warden defeated Cooper seventh-grader Ellie Zureick, 6-2, 6-0, in the singles final. Warden also won the title in 2014, but she was runner-up last year.
In doubles, Francie Case and Kylie Moellering of Notre Dame defeated Sydney Hancock and Abby Hillman of Scott, 6-4, 6-4. Case switched to doubles after winning the regional singles title last year.
Notre Dame will take on Dixie Heights in the championship final of the 9th Region girls’ team tournament at 4 p.m. Thursday at Five Seasons.