Ridgefield High School junior Mikey Nester is still waiting for a high school tennis season to end on a good note.
His freshman season was halted by a bout of appendicitis right before the district tournament.
“My stomach hurt for a couple of days,” Nester said. “We even played a match while my appendix was bad. Then we found out when we went to the hospital that it had already burst. That was messed up.”
His sophomore season, he and his doubles partner Jonah Kropp qualified for state by placing third at the district tournament.
“And then state got canceled because of COVID,” he said.
Then came his junior season, a weird one played amid the winter weather of February and March.
“It was a really confusing season,” Nester said. “Our first five matches were rained out. It wasn’t looking very good, just every single day it was pouring down rain. There never seemed like a good time to play, but toward the end we started to get it figured out.”
Last Friday, on the last possible day, Ridgefield and Columbia River were able to play each other for the 2A Greater St. Helens League title.
And it provided Nester with a match he won’t soon forget.
“That was my most favorite match that I’ve ever played,” Nester said of his battle with River’s Brady Decker last Friday.
Nester and Decker, playing at No. 3 singles, were the last varsity match still on the court. Nester took the first set 6-2 and was trying to win the second set in a tiebreaker.
With River leading the match 3-2, not only did Nester need to win his match to force a tie, he needed to win the set, otherwise River would take the match on a tiebreaker.
Not that Nester was aware of any of that at the time.
Nester was up 5-4 in the tiebreaker when a nifty drop shot sent Decker into the fence. As Ridgefield’s supporters celebrated the point, Decker remained on the ground.
“The last couple of points, both of our legs were kind of hurting, and we were stumbling around a little bit,” Nester said.
While Decker was being attended to with bad leg cramps, Nester tried stay loose.
“I was just walking around, and my coach took me to the side and she said ‘if you lose this, then we lose against Columbia River,’ ” Nester said.
No pressure or anything, Mikey.
“It was pretty intense, but I just kind of knew I had it in me,” Nester said.
After a 10-minute delay, play resumed. Then Nester served out to win his match.
The victory left Ridgefield and River tied – in matches, sets and games – leaving them as co-league champions.
“It was pretty scary,” Nester said. “There was just stuff going on all around. There were like 20 people off to the side watching, yelling after every point. But it was also a lot of fun. The very last point, I don’t know, it was hard to describe the feeling, but it was awesome.”
The next day, Nester joined fellow junior Ryan Gruber and won two doubles matches in straight sets at the start of the 2A GSHL tournament.
“I had to get some good rest (Friday) night,” Nester said. “I was worried I might be cramping up the next day.”
The league tournament concludes Wednesday and Thursday at Vancouver Tennis Center. Nester and Gruber will play in the semifinals on Thursday, needing to reach the finals to clinch berth to the district tournament, which will be played Friday in Longview.
“That final match against the No. 1 seed is what we’re looking forward to the most,” Nester said, referring to Fort Vancouver’s Sam Crawford and Jeffrey Truong. “We’ve known those guys for a while, and we really want to beat them.”
Last Friday provided a special memory for Nester. And he hopes to add another later this week, especially given how his previous two seasons ended.
“So this year, we’re going to hopefully make it count,” he said.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.
