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On a warm sunny Tuesday at the McCluskey Tennis Center, the LaGrange Academy Warriors battled it out in the GISA region 1AA region championship and saw seven players earn spots in the individual state playoffs. 

The Warriors’ no. 1 boys single player, sophomore Prem Kamat, put on quite the show and dominated his way to his first-ever region title. 

“That was one of the goals from the start and now I want to win a state championship, but I’m glad to have this,” Kamat said. 

“I think my serve was really good but my backhand wasn’t where I wanted it to be today. I missed too many balls, but I felt like I played solid overall.”

He won 8-0 in both the first and second rounds before matching up against fellow Warrior Alex Jarvholm in the final. Jarvholm, just a freshman, went on quite a run himself before falling 6-1 and 6-2 in the final. He beat Avery Pope from Notre Dame in the first round and pulled off an upset over higher-seeded Henry Ding in the semifinals. No. 3 singles player Martin Zachry lost a tight game with Hank Muse in the first round 8-6. 

No. 1 girls singles player Sowon Kim put on quite a show for the home crowd. The eighth grader made it all the way to the final and finished runner-up after a back-and-forth final match with no. 1 seeded Claire Braudigan. Kim won the first set 6-2 before losing the second set 4-6. She lost the tie break 10-6 on four straight points after it was tied 6-6. She put on a show, upsetting a higher seed in the semifinals and has a bright future for the Warriors on the court. 

The Warriors will also send two pairs of doubles to the state playoffs as well. Both pairs fell in the semifinals and subsequently had to play against each other in the third-place game with Zach Tures and Grayson Blair coming out on top of Kenny Horlander and Jake Ahn. Tures and Blair will go to the playoffs as a third seed while Horlander and Ahn will go as a fourth seed.

The state individual playoffs will be on April 17-18 at Berry College in Rome. 

“I want to win a state championship, that’s the goal,” Kamat said. 

The boys team also qualified for the state team playoffs on April 25-26 and received their region trophy on Tuesday.