Dodge City’s Alvarado claims Player of Year honor
Early in the 2023 spring season, Garden City High School boys’ tennis coach Logan Bevis had discussed his plans for the season-ending Western Athletic Conference championship with his six players that comprised his two singles players and two doubles teams.
In order to give his Buffaloes the best opportunity to pursue their fifth consecutive outright conference championship he was going to have to alter his lineup for the one-day round-robin event.
Likewise, Dodge City junior Oscar Alvarado had made the similar decision between doubles and singles, but his option to become a singles player was made at the end of the 2022 season when he realized he would be losing his doubles partner to a transfer.
Both of those decisions worked out well as the Buffaloes, with their re-aligned lineup, captured first place with 14 points to narrowly edge out Dodge City, which was close behind with 11 points. And Alvarado, who has enjoyed an impressive junior campaign as a singles player, went 4-0 to claim the No. 1 singles crown and then was voted the 2023 Player of the Year.
The biggest switch came for the Buffaloes when Garden’s Bevis looked at the lineups for the WAC championship and determined the best chance for his team to repeat was to move last year’s No. 1 singles champion and two-time WAC Player of the Year Logan Morren from his No. 1 doubles spot with fellow senior Colin Kleysteuber, back to play No. 1 singles.
That resulted in Kleysteuber being paired with the usual No. 2 singles player Carson Kraus while Josh Negron, having played No. 1 singles all season, dropping to No. 2 and the combination of Tom Tran and Ashton Palmer remained intact at No. 2 doubles.
All’s well that ends well, the saying goes. For Bevis, it the fact he rolled the dice and it came up the lucky or good fortune number.
“One of the challenges he way high school tennis is structured in Kansas that on tournament days, team points are scored off individual finishes,” Bevis said. “You only get an entry into one event. So for us, the decision was to move Logan back to singles so he could earn as many points as possible (3 in this case, going 3-1) and putting Carson with Colin at No. 1 doubles we still got all four points there.”
Bevis also cited the fact that Negron went undefeated to earn four points while Tran and Palmer went 3-1 to provide the Buffs with three important points.
“The way things stood, Josh at No. 1 could have seen him go anywhere from 3-1 to 1-3, so we got three points secured from Logan,” Bevis said. “Colin and Carson did a great job to get all four points as did Josh at No. 2 singles. Everything just worked out the way we hoped it would.”
For the one tournament, Bevis had to determine the best road to the title and that was to make a switch for the first and only time all season in his lineup.
“With the (old) lineup we had during the season, the points looked to be more variable,” Bevis said. “We knew pretty clearly that this gave us the best chance to win and it worked out. The kids were excited because we had so many new pieces to the roster this year. Sometimes it’s easy to take things for granted, but we always want to win WAC. We’ve been pretty close in recent years so you want to take time and enjoy it. We lose three seniors off the team, so we’ve got some work to do for next year.”
Dodge City’s Alvarado makes the switch
Toward the end of his sophomore season, Dodge City’s Oscar Alvarado saw the writing on the wall or was able to look into his crystal ball for the following campaign of 2023.
Having played doubles, he knew moving over to singles was the best thing he could do for his junior season.
That moved proved to be the right path as he swept through four matches at the WAC championship to claim the No. 1 singles title and in the process was voted WAC Player of the Year.
He also was able to defeat two-time WAC Player of the Year Logan Morren in a key early match of the round-robin format. Morren was playing singles for the first time all season, something Alvarado said he wished had been different.
“It was great to win the match, but I would have liked to have played him when he was in singles shape,” Alvarado said. “That way, I’d know better how my game matches up with players at state because he (Morren) placed at state last year.”
Nevertheless, Alvarado was going to enjoy the honor as he compiled a glossy 31-5 record during the season, added a third-place Class 6A regional finish to punch his ticket to the state tournament in Topeka (May 12-13).
“Winning WAC was one of my goals all season,” Alvarado said. “I see myself more as a singles player than doubles so I was excited to see how I could do. I can have a better chance to control a match and control points. In singles, there’s more room for errors. The hardest part is that you’re out there alone and nobody’s cheering for you.”
Alvarado said he had improved his forehand shot by reducing unforced errors and becoming more consistent.
“You just find your weaknesses and work to improve those,” Alvarado said. “I’m working hard to get my serves, especially the second one, to be better and more consistent. I care more about the first serve, but I need to do better on getting my second serve in and make it a deep serve.”
Alvarado’s toughest match of the day was his final one against Hays’ Colin Clark. The match ended with an 8-6 victory for the Dodge City player, but it didn’t come easily.
“I was down 0-2 and then down 4-5 before winning two straight,” Alvarado said of taking a 6-5 lead. Eventually, he would win two of three for a 7-6 advantage before closing out Clark, 8-6.
“The lob was working well against all the opponents all day,” Alvarado said of one shot he came to rely on during the four matches. “It was really effective against everyone.”
Now that the season is winding down with just state remaining, Alvarado looks back at his 2022 state tournament appearance in doubles.
“Even though I was playing doubles then, I would watch a lot of the singles players because I knew I would be playing singles this year,” Alvarado said. “I just wanted to get a feel for the quality of players and I know it will be tough, but I’m excited to have this chance.”
WAC Boys Tennis Championship
| Final | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Garden City | 14 |
| 2 | Dodge City | 11 |
| 2 | Hays | 10 |
| 4 | Liberal | 3 |
| 5 | Great Bend | 2 |
All-WAC First Team
| Player(s) | School | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|
| No. 1 Singles | Oscar Alvarado | Dodge City | 4-0 |
| No. 2 Singles | Josh Negron | Garden City | 4-0 |
| No. 1 Doubles | Colin Kleysteuber Carson Kraus | Garden City | 4-0 |
| No. 2 Doubles | Ken Shaffer Kale Schwien | Hays | 4-0 |
WAC Coach of the Year – Logan Bevis, Garden City
