Sectional tennis: Elyria Catholic's Ethan Smerglia overcomes broken string to finish second

A broken string was not about to break Ethan Smerglia.The Elyria Catholic senior had to switch rackets a few points into the first game of his Division II Strongsville sectional semifinal Saturday, but his backup proved to be just as capable as he defended his seed against St. John's Christian Barbian 1-6, 6-4, 6-2.Smerglia, the No. 2 seed, finished sectional runner up after losing to St. John's Kenton Zheng, who upset No. 1 Daniel Chen of Beachwood 0-6, 6-2, 6-1 in a semifinal."As soon as I got used to my backup racket, I was doing fine," Smerglia said. "Really in the second and third set it was about keeping the points long and then finishing at the right spot. Just keeping him in those long rallies. Really the key to adjusting was just making the simple, smart shots. It took me a minute to adjust, but that second and third set I had finally adapted and it was just about making smart decisions at that point."Seven from Lorain County will compete at district tournaments this week. The Northeast district tournament for Divisions I and II will be held over the course of three days from Thursday until Saturday at the Springside Athletic Club. The Northwest district tournament for Division II will be held at Port Clinton on Thursday and Saturday.Vermilion's Timothy Anders and Sean Rini made quite a run at the Port Clinton sectional. The Sailors' top two singles players teamed up for the postseason and, while they did not receive a seed, they quickly proved they should have."It's actually really great because this is the first time I played varsity," Rini said. "I played junior varsity last year because the team was really good, so this year has been really fun."The duo won both matches Thursday as the only unseeded team to reach the semifinals. On Saturday, the run continued with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 upset of Luke Spicer and Pavan Gorty, the No. 2 seed from St. Mary's Central Catholic.In the final, Anders and Rini lost to No. 1 Chase Castle and Oscar Webb of Clyde 7-5, 6-4. Prior to the sectional, Anders and Rini had played seven matches together in the regular season, with five of them coming at the Lorain County Athletic Administrators Association doubles tournament."We both played them before," Anders said of St. Mary's. "I played them last year with a different partner and he played them this year with a different partner. We both had a lot of experience against those guys. We came together, put our heads together and got it done. In the first set we played really good and focused and we kind of let up a little bit in the second. We knew in the third set we had to bring back that first-set energy."In Division I, Avon once again leads Lorain County with three district qualifiers, sending its top three to the Northeast district tournament. Aarav Kishorepuria and Blake Netschke — the team's top two singles players — elected to team up this postseason and received the No. 2 seed in the doubles draw.On Saturday, they won 7-5, 6-2 against No. 3 Simon Youssef and Jongeun Choi of Brecksville. The seeding held to form as Avon lost 6-3, 6-0 to No. 1 Enrique Isaev and Jerrel Rayen of North Royalton in the championship. It's the first district tournament appearance for the Avon sophomores."It feels pretty amazing," Kishorepuria said. "It's something Blake and I have thought about for many, many years. Before playing high school tennis, we've always wanted to go far at districts. Getting here is a huge goal, but there's still stuff for us to finish at districts so we can hopefully make it to state."Junior Ashton Schwanger will join his teammates at the district as the only player from Avon to compete in singles. He also was the only unseeded player to come out of the Springside sectional, but faced a tough semifinal against Revere junior Finn Keenan — a two-time state qualifier who finished third in the Division I state singles draw last year.Keenan ultimately won the sectional title without dropping a game in his five matches. Schwanger finished fourth after losing to John Komlanc of Copley 6-2, 6-1 in the third-place match.Cody Hodge of St. Ignatius, a North Ridgeville resident, also will compete in the Division I district tournament, partnering with Reynaldo Guillermo to take fourth at the Highland sectional. The pair lost to No. 2 Zoard Vasarhelyi and Kyle Vaziri of St. Edward 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals, then 6-4, 7-5 to Colston Milovich and Sammy Jang in the third-place match.Contact Chris Sweeney at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. Follow him @CSweeney1686 on X.