Knights’ Latouf and Pringle net a state experience
West Holmes senior Alex Pringle returns a shot at the state tournament. Pringle and doubles mate Sami Latouf made a remarkable run to the state tournament.
Coming into the spring tennis season, it was questionable if the West Holmes Knights would even have a tennis team, considering it was searching for a head coach right up until close to the beginning of the season.
Former Knights’ standout Trevor Miller chose to step up and coach, setting the season in motion.
That motion turned into something special when a pair of Knights turned their singles game into doubles gold.
Both Sami Latouf and Alex Pringle played most of the season at singles, but when tournament time rolled around, they decided to take the doubles route, seeing a cleaner path to perhaps capturing a spot at the district tournament.
They did much more than that, parlaying their talents into an unlikely state tournament appearance that was not in their thoughts at the beginning of the year.
“When we first started talking about playing doubles, we talked about how cool it would be to get to state, but we really never thought we had a shot at it,” Latouf said. “But once we did so well at sectionals, we felt like we had a chance to make it.”
The duo rolled through sectionals, capturing the title against Cambridge by taking the full three sets.
Then came an electrifying performance at districts that saw them crush their way to victory to qualify for state.
The two played singles most of the season, mixing in doubles play later in the season when they got a chance. Because singles and doubles play are two completely different beasts, it took a little time for them to figure out how their respective strengths played best in doubles.
A somewhat towering figure, Pringle’s strength came at the net where he could use his size to gobble up mistakes and put them away. Latouf is smaller and quicker and could best utilize his skills scampering around the baseline.
Both players began playing tennis in their freshman year, Latouf diving in because some of his friends played. Pringle followed suit, and both quickly learned the game and played it successfully.
“Singles is fine, but now I’d much rather play doubles,” Pringle said. “It’s more of a challenge playing doubles because of the net man. It’s kind of a different and fun challenge to work together.”
As they headed to state, the duo said they realized the competition level would take a gigantic step up, but getting the opportunity to take their game to that level was worth the time, work and effort they put in to improve their skills.
“The hope is to play the best day of tennis in your life and see if you can come away with a win,” Latouf said. “We’re excited to at least get the challenge, and I feel like we’re both playing as well as we have all season, and we’re on our ‘A’ game.”
The step up in competition took a toll, and the Knights fell to CVCA in the opening round of play.
That didn’t deter from the joy of making a state appearance for the duo.
“It feels good to make it to state because I never would have dreamed my freshman year that I could ever make it to state,” Pringle said. “It feels like a great accomplishment.”
Miller said his two stars earned every bit of the accolades they achieved.
“They were kind of rough the first two times I put them at doubles, but they picked it up pretty quickly,” Miller said. “It takes time to learn to play together if you haven’t done it much, so they had to learn each other’s games and strengths and weaknesses. Once they did, they really kind of clicked.”
He said seeing them take on this challenge was exciting to watch, and placing them together made sense because it gave them the best chance to succeed and get out of sectionals.
Miller said one big advantage was not having to play at Columbus for districts, where the competition level is so much greater.
“When I saw we were switched back to Dover, I thought maybe there was a chance we could do something special,” Miller said. “I knew they had the talent to make something happen.”
“It’s been pretty awesome,” Latouf said, “definitely not something we could have predicted.”