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Warren Central tennis player Luke Bond hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Sydney Sullivan follows through on a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Sam Harris hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Lilli Feibelman hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Ivan Ozherelev hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Gray Lampkin hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Avery Hern hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central tennis player Brady Taylor hits a shot during an MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch Tuesday at Halls Ferry Park. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

Warren Central's tennis team shares a moment before the start of Tuesday's MHSAA Class 6A playoff match against Olive Branch. Warren Central won, 6-1. (Paul Ingram/For The Vicksburg Post)

There’s something, coach Steve Summers says, that he’d often hear when his Warren Central tennis teams had a good season that he’s not hearing now — and he likes it.

“We’re not sneaking up on anybody,” Summers said. “In the past it was, ‘Where did Warren Central come from?’ Now they’re looking for us. And that’s good. I want them to know when you come to the River to play us, you’d better bring your best game because we’re here and we’re ready.”

The Vikings took another step in their transformation from plucky underdog to serious state championship contender on Tuesday by crushing Olive Branch 6-1 in the first round of the MHSAA Class 6A team playoffs at Halls Ferry Park.

Warren Central won the No. 2 girls doubles and mixed doubles points by forfeit, and then dropped a total of two games in their other four victories.

Ivan Ozherelev in boys singles and Gray Lampkin and Brady Taylor in No. 1 boys doubles both won 6-0, 6-0. The No. 1 boys doubles team of Sam Harris and Luke Bond won 6-0, 6-1, and the No. 1 girls doubles pairing of Sydney Sullivan and Lilli Feibelman won 6-1, 6-0.

Olive Branch’s Allie Dina beat WC’s Avery Hern 7-5, 6-2 in girls singles in a competitive match that featured a number of long points and lasted nearly two hours. All of the others matches were finished in about an hour.

“This is what we’ve been working for. My kids were ready to play today,” Summers said. “We came out and it was very businesslike. We took care of business. We played hard and fast and we’re getting ready for the next one.”

Warren Central advanced to face Grenada in the second round. That match will be at Halls Ferry Park on Thursday, April 10, at 4 p.m. Warren Central lost to Grenada 4-3 in the regular season.

The winner will advance to the semifinals April 14 in Oxford. If it’s Warren Central, it would be yet another impressive milestone for a program that has steadily improved from a winless record in 2022 to a 15-6 mark and the status of Region 2-6A champion this season.

The Vikings only have two seniors, Amelia King and Laura Bailey, and have built a contender largely from the ground up. After the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 season and crippled the team for 2021, Summers started over with a core group of young players who have gotten better as they’ve grown.

Warren Central won the Region 2-6A individual championship in boys singles, boys and girls doubles, and mixed doubles last week. In the boys and girls doubles brackets, its No. 2 teams beat the No. 1 squad in the finals.

The individual state tournament is conducted separately from the team playoffs. It will also be played April 15-16 in Oxford.

“I never played tennis until I started here in eighth grade. It’s just been working hard every year and getting better. I’m finally at a point where I feel like I’m good,” said King, who paired with Hern to win the Region 2-6A girls doubles title.

Summers said keeping the core group together and being patient has paid off. Fifteen players on this year’s roster are either sophomores or juniors.

“We started five years ago with a fresh group of seventh-graders and we stayed with it. Those parents and those kids stayed with it. Some of them were tennis kids and came from tennis families, but some of them were not. It’s keeping them together, keeping the same team together, and giving them opportunities to get on the court whether it’s practice or USTA,” Summers said. “We want to be a program first and support each other. That was the main thing. Once we got that into place, the skills came.”

Summers acknowledged that the rest of the team playoffs won’t be as easy as Tuesday’s win. Grenada defeated Warren Central in March, and 2024 semifinalist West Jones would likely be next up after that.

Still, he also feels like the Vikings are in the conversation of contenders — and will be for a while to come.

“Every team’s got some holes in their lineup. But this team is battle-tested. We’ve played monsters outside of district,” Summers said. “In 6A there’s about five teams that’ve got a legitimate shot to win it — and we’re one of them.”

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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