The Mauston Boys Tennis team started their 2012 season with an all day tennis tournament held at Ripon College on Saturday.  The Golden Eagles had a number of strong performances.  At 1st Singles, Brock Huebner lost in the first round to eventual tournament champion Brock Gospadarek 6-7 (4-7), 4-6, but rallied back to beat Chilton’s Philip Buelow 6-4, 6-2 and then took home consolation after a grueling 3rd match against Waupun’s Jack McMahon 6-1, 6-3.  At 2nd Singles, Tommy Napier lost his first two matches to Two Rivers’ Chase Collins and Chilton’s Evan Grevel by identical scores of 1-6, 4-6.  Napier would answer back in the 7th place match-up as he defeated Waupun’s Ryan Ducham 6-0, 6-4.  At 3rd singles, sophomore Josh Leach lost to Chilton’s Aaron Reilly 0-6, 0-6 and Ripon’s Marshall Bowman 1-6, 2-6 but also rallied back in the 7th place tilt with a victory over Howard’s Grove Dan Sohn 6-4, 6-1.  At 4th Singles, Neil Staplin fell 2-6, 0-6 to Chilton’s Chris Biese but then answered with a clutch 6-4, 4-6, 12-10 (super tiebreaker) victory over Ripon’s Travis Johnson to win the consolation title.  The 1st Doubles pair of seniors Jarrett Schnaare and Casey LaFond lost all 3 of their matches to Jefferson, Ripon and Howard’s Grove.  At 2nd doubles, the pair of Anthony Hagen and Lance Schroeder came very close to winning their 1st match of the season in the 7th place game losing 2-6, 5-7 to Howard’s Grove after being routed thoroughly in their first two matches against Two Rivers and Chilton respectively.  Mauston’s 3rd doubles pair of freshman Joe Bauer and sophomore Cody Smith delivered some big surprises by winning their first match against Ripon’s Michael Becker and Makena Kastenschmidt 6-4, 7-5 only to lose in the semi-finals to Jefferson.  Bauer and Smith then powered their way to a 6-2, 6-3 victory by Howard’s Grove to earn 3rd place honors.   “I thought we played very well, and it was in a tournament with mostly teams from Eastern Wisconsin which we rarely play against, the part of the state where the competition is supposedly better.  We had a number of guys play really well both at singles and on doubles and that bodes well for the rest of the season.  Playing 3 matches in a single day is pretty taxing, but our guys fought through it well,” said Boys Tennis Head Coach Derek Felska.  Added assistant coach Kyle Czys, “For a good portion of our guys, this was their first match as a varsity player and many of them played very competitively, you could see them learning the game in the way you only can from playing in matches and it was a really special thing to be apart of!”  The Golden Eagles’ next match is this Monday against Assumption High School in Wisconsin Rapids.