Scheller is first North Catholic player to win state title twice

North Catholic senior Nicolas Scheller was looking forward to a state championship rematch against Nile Adadir, whobeat him in the 2021 final.

Scheller did his part Saturday and earned his spot in the championship with a semifinal win over Jonah Ng of Cathedral Prep. But Adadir was ousted by Faith Christian sophomoreToby Frantz.

“I would have loved to have played him again,” Scheller said. “I think it would have been a great match, but I’m notupset I didn’t play him.”

Itmay not have been the opponent Scheller was expecting. But the end result turned outexactly as he had hoped.

Scheller closed out his high school career with a 6-0, 6-0, victory over Frantz at Hershey Racquet Club to become the first Trojans player to win aPIAA Class 2A singles title.

“I don’t think you can get much better than that,” Scheller said. “This is exactly what I wanted to do. It’s awesome.It’s an unreal feeling.”

North Catholic had an opportunityto make it a sweep of the classification as senior Brody Golla and junior Alex Garvey rolled their semifinal and became the first Trojans to appear in a Class 2A state doubles final. But their title hopes were quickly dashed by Dallas freshman Kyle

Chessman and his sophomore brother Tucker as the District 3 champions added state titlists to their resume with a 61,6-1 win in the final.

Jacob Patterson became the first South Fayette tennis player to compete in a state final when he knocked off District 1 fifth-place finisher Justin Xu of Conestoga, 6-1, 61, in the Class 3A semifinals. But the Lions senior and Denisonrecruit could not close out his career with a state championship as he fell in a threeset thriller to Central Mountain sophomore David Lindsay,4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

Patterson came into the state finals as the No. 1 senior in the state while Lindsay, was the No. 1-ranked sophomore.

Inthe past 10 years only two WPIAL representatives have won the state singles title in the highest classification. Chad Kissell of Latrobe took the crown in 2015 and Robby

Shymansky of Fox Chapel in 2019.

ShadySide Academy’s doubles team of senior Sam Bitzer and junior David Mnuskin made it through to the semifinals, but that was where their state championship hopes ended in a 6-1, 6-1 loss to Palmyra twins Aidan and Tyler Mahaffey. The Bulldogs tandem ended up fourth after a 63, 6-3 loss to Hayden Koons and Daniel Wu of Dallastown inthe consolation.