Catoosa County Boys’ Co-Players of the Year
Tennis continues to be a sport growing in popularity in the northwest Georgia area and Catoosa County is no exception.
This past season, three singles players, one from each of the high schools in the county, set themselves apart with their play on the court.
Today, Ringgold’s Camden Tunnell, LFO’s Andrew Hedges and Heritage’s Nathan Minton are all sharing the 2021 Catoosa County Boys’ Tennis Player of the Year award.
Tunnell, the only senior in the group, said it was “pretty cool” to share the honor.
“It feels pretty good to know that your years’ worth of work paid off,” he said. “It just felt great to find out.”
Tunnell went 7-3 at No. 1 singles during the 2021 season to lead the charge for the Tigers.
“I was just worried that the whole season was going to get cancelled,” he said, referring to the 2020 campaign that was taken away by COVID-19. “I had my ups and downs, but it was still a pretty good season. There were a couple matches that got away from me, but when we needed the win, we showed up. It was a really good season overall from the team.”
Included in those seven victories was a hard-fought three-set win over Minton in their lone head-to-head match.
“Nathan and I are pretty good friends and we’ve been playing against each other for over a year now,” he added.
“We were both struggling the whole match and then the final set, I finally got it going, so that one felt pretty great to get the win.”
Tunnell said he will continue to play tennis for fun, but that he’s leaning away from trying to play competitively in college at Middle Georgia State where he plans to study aviation. Tunnell already has his pilot’s license and has been flying for the past few years.
He said his time as a high school tennis player, however, would be fondly remembered.
“The friends I’ve met,” he added when asked what he would miss the most. “Just the whole team and how the whole team has become great friends. And I have to thank Coach (Jake) Pullen
for everything and what he’s done to help here.”
For Hedges, he received the news of the award while in California. A native of the Golden State, he moved to the northwest Georgia area prior to this past school year.
“It feels really good,” he said. “It was a pretty fun year. I came back to tennis after a few months’ break. I started getting back into it and it was really fun playing against all the guys from the other high schools. It was good competition and it was a fun season.”
Hedges said he began playing the sport when he was 10 and took a break about four years later before picking things back up fairly recently.
“Honestly, it’s just a good experience to play a sport that you like and to get to meet new people that you become friends with,” he continued. “Obviously, you want to win, but then afterwards, if you can make a friend out of it, it just makes it an overall good experience.”
He explained how it was through tennis that he met and developed a friendship with Tunnell. He would score a three-set win over the Ringgold standout as part of a 6-1 campaign at
No. 1 singles this past season.
“Camden and I had a really fun match,” he recalled. “He showed a lot of sportsmanship, so we actually had a lot of laughs. It was just enjoyable because it went to a third set, so winning that match was really nice. He was just really super friendly afterward.”
Hedges said he would like to play tennis in college, if the opportunity arises. However, with still one season left to go with the Warriors, he said his more immediate goals are to help LFO get better as a program and to take care of a piece of unfinished business from this past spring.
“I hope to help our team win a lot of matches and help everybody improve,” he added. “We had some beginners this year, but it’s nice to see new people get interested in tennis. I also want avenge my loss from this past year.”
As for Minton, he found out the news of the award from Tunnell.
“It was a big surprise,” he said. “At least it was a three-way tie and no one had to lose.”
Minton, playing No.1 singles for the Generals, amassed a 10-3 overall record and helped get the Navy-and-Red to the Class AAAA state tournament.
“I was able to avenge most of my losses at the region (tournament), so that was nice,” he explained. “It was a great year. We had some newer players on the team that we had to try and train up and make better, so hopefully we’ll have an even better team next year. We’re going to have a few good upcoming freshman and me and (teammate) J.T. Halloran should be able to hold things down at No. 1 and No. 2 singles.”
Ironically enough, Minton also brought up the match against Tunnell when asked about his favorite memory of the season.
“It was tough,” he said. “I came out and won the first set and usually when we play (each other) at Heritage, I lose, and when we play at Ringgold, I win, and it was at Heritage this year. I thought I started off strong, but I gave him an easy second set and I just didn’t play my best in the third, so he was able to keep his winning streak alive here.”
Like Hedges, Minton also has dreams of playing tennis in college, even as a walk-on at a smaller school. However, he said he still has big plans for his senior season next spring.
“I have one more year to try and win the region,” he said. “We also want to go a lot farther at state. This year, we had a low seed and had to play Marist, who actually went on to win (the state championship). It was very unfortunate for us, so we’d like to win the region and at least make it to the Final Four.”