Western’s boys tennis team improved to 9-0 by beating three teams in Saturday’s McCutcheon Invitational, a four-team round robin event. The Panthers opened with a 4-1 victory over McCutcheon, then beat both North Montgomery and Covington by 5-0 scorelines.

Benji Fountain went 3-0 at No. 1 singles for the Panthers, Matt Orr went 2-1 at No. 2 and Tyler Lucas went 3-0 at No. 3. The team of Andrew Lindley and Raghav Haran went 3-0 at No. 1 doubles, and the team of Brandon Penning and Austin Lafollette was 3-0 at No. 2.

“I thought the team came out pretty strong,” Western coach Brandon Shawhan said. “I knew [McCutcheon] would be solid again. They were solid at their singles spots, had some pretty solid doubles as well. I thought we came out strong against them. We had a good showing mentally. The first couple points against McCutcheon [some Panthers] seemed a little shaky, but after the first game, took time to figure out their opponents and they went to work after that. It could have gone either way after that first game but they dug deep, slowed the game down and played it the way they should have.

“To win three matches in the day — it’s a long day — I felt like our guys stayed focused from match to match and that’s really important to do.”

Taylor 4, Twin Lakes 1

The Titans moved to 5-1 with the victory over the Indians.

“This was probably our best overall showing from top to bottom,” Taylor coach Dave Wise said.

Taylor scored a sweep of the singles matches. At No. 1, Drew Hansen won 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6). At No. 2, Nathan Gotshall won 6-2, 6-1. And at No. 3, Logan Barnes was a 6-1, 6-4 winner.

Wise noted No. 1 singles match “was probably as good a No. 1 singles as I’ve seen this season. It went right down to the last two points. They played for probably 21⁄2 hours, easily.”

Taylor’s other point came at No. 1 doubles where Matt Brankle and Camerom Clark rolled to a 6-1, 6-0 win.

At No. 2 doubles, Twin Lakes’ team topped the Titans’ Jack Lipchik and Casey Glick in a three-set match, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 6-2.

VOLLEYBALL

Clinton Prairie Invitational

Western improved to 10-1 by cruising through all three opponents in the round-robin invitational. Western crushed Taylor 25-8, 25-9, smothered Sheridan 25-5, 25-5, and then controlled Clinton Prairie 25-14, 25-14.

Sable Staller had 18 digs, 23 aces and 18 kills to lead the Western effort. Taylor Ruch had 10 kills and 12 digs. Taylor Young had 15 digs and eight kills. Nicole Rogers had 17 kills. Amanda Kingsolver had eight aces. Jessie Meeks had 49 assists and four aces.

“They played really well,” Western coach Lindsay Reinking said. “We had a lot of great serving.

“Sable just did an awesome job on her jump serving. Having 23 aces, that kind of shows her jump serves are pretty hard to touch.”

After dropping its opener to Western, Taylor lost 25-10, 25-21 to Clinton Prairie, then beat Sheridan 25-17, 25-23 to improve to 2-9 on the season.

Mone’y Black led the Taylor offense with nine kills. Rebecca Maack added seven kills and four aces. Megan Steward had four kills and Brooke Barbary had four aces.

“They played good,” Taylor coach Myndie Everling said. “We were missing [setter/middle hitter] Bri Barnett so considering that, working with a new rotation they did pretty well.”

Boys CC

Harrison Invite

Kokomo finished 22nd in the 27-team invitational. Adrian Glover led the Kats, covering the course in 16:13 for 12th place. He was followed by Brent Noll (123rd, 18:15), Matt Scharenbroch (153rd, 19:08), Waylon Coulter (164th, 19:35) and Minh Pham (169th, 19:55).

“The KHS harriers were sick and short handed, but had six of seven set season bests,” Kat coach Ricke Stucker said.

Peru’s runners took 25th and had five of their top seven runners set personal bests. Jordan Garretson (17:53) led Peru’s contingent. He was followed by Clint Hazlett (19:36), Ryan Carter (20:02), Tyler Kintner (20:14), Shane Garretson (20:18).

“I am very proud of these runners because they train hard on a daily basis and their results from [Saturday] prove that,” Peru coach Eric Isenburg said.

Girls CC

Harrison Invitational

Peru finished 19th in the 27-team invitational as four of the seven Bengal Tigers set personal bests. Emilie Hobbs lead the Bengals with a time of 21:41, followed by Keyia McConahay (21:49), Taylour Kintner (22:35) and Gena Fisher (23:36).

“We continue to improve our times each meet,” Isenburg said. “One of our team goals is to get better each meet. I am very happy for the kids that [it has happened] by 20-30 seconds each meet this week.”