DENVER • It proved to be a short stay for the area’s 5A tennis players in the championship draw at the state tournament at the Gates Tennis Center.

Eight of the 10 entrants from Air Academy, Doherty and Pine Creek suffered first-round losses. Only Pine Creek’s No. 1 and 2 singles – Andrew Pack and McKay Inman – made it through. And they were bounced from championship consideration in the second round. Neither qualified for the playback round.

Pack, a junior, rallied from a 5-0 deficit in the second set to Arapahoe’s Cole Conley for a 6-0, 7-6 (2) victory. Staring down a potential third and decisive set, Pack found his service game just in time.

“I just didn’t want to go to a third set. I wanted to finish the game, so I tried harder,” he said. “I felt like my serve was essential to my game. I wasn’t serving too well at the beginning of the second set, but then I started to serve better and place it better.”

In the quarterfinals, he was knocked out of the championship draw 6-1, 6-1 by Rocky Mountain’s Casey MacMaster, one of the tournament favorites.

Inman, meanwhile, made it out of the first round with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Max Winn-Clouse of Loveland. But, like Pack, his championship hopes were dashed in the next round when Simon Hagelund of George Washington won 6-1, 6-2.

The only other area No. 1 singles player in the draw was Doherty’s Miles Peterson. The junior took the first set against Denver East’s Joseph Lassen, but a tough tiebreaker in the second set and nagging cramps spelled his demise en route to a three-set loss, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-3.

“I started losing my legs at the end of the second set there,” Peterson said.

The Doherty boy took it in stride.

“I kind of wish I could’ve had a little bit more at the end there,” Peterson said. “I didn’t play bad today. So I’m happy about that.”

But he’d been happier with a victory. So would Air Academy.

All four of the doubles duos lost in the first round. Cherry Creek, looking for its 35th title in 37 years, shares the first-round lead with Regis Jesuit with 12 points each. Fairview is third with nine points.

Photo by