In 2023 and 2024, Mt. Vernon controlled the Hoosier Heritage Conference in boys' tennis, winning back-to-back league titles and beating Delta both years.
Monday night, Delta served notice that the Eagles are back on top.
Delta swept the visiting Marauders 7-0 on Senior Night to complete a perfect 7-0 conference record. The 13th-ranked Eagles raised their record to 17-2 with their 11th shutout of the season.
The Eagles' seven seniors all came up big on Senior Night in front of family and friends.
Senior Aaron Elliott teamed with junior Tyce Dishman to win 7-5, 7-6 at No. 1 doubles over Mt. Vernon's aggressive and hard-hitting team of Bryndan Wylie and Tate Cougill. The match was the 49th varsity victory of Aaron's career, which ties him with assistant coach Tate Dishman on the career win list.
Seniors Brady Williams and Ben Miller cruised to a 6-0, 6-1 win at No. 2 doubles. Brady is 16-2 this season and has the team's best varsity record. Ben is 12-2, often with Brady as his partner. They also played together much of last season, earning all-conference and all-district honors at No. 1 doubles.
New Mt. Vernon coach Justin Davis agreed to play an extended varsity lineup of two more doubles positions to give more Eagle seniors a varsity opportunity.
The senior teams of Kaden Crist/John Atkinson and Ayden Mitchell/Jacob Williams got their first varsity matches of the year and responded well.
Crist and Atkinson dominated their opponents, 6-0, 6-1, at No. 3 doubles. Crist played four varsity matches a year ago and Atkinson played two, but the addition this season of three outstanding freshmen resulted in no opportunities yet this year. Each has continued to practice hard and show improvement, which was evident Monday night.
Mitchell and Williams played varsity for the first time. Not only had they never played varsity, they had never been doubles partners. But they hung tough in a 2-hour, 30-minute match at No. 4 doubles, winning 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. Their victory enabled the Eagles to complete an incredible stat that has never happened before in DHS Tennis history: For the entire season, Delta did not lose a singles or doubles match against an opponent that was not state-ranked, going 61-0 in those matches!
While the seniors took center stage. Delta's younger players also shined against Mt. Vernon.
Freshman Jackson Darby played an outstanding match in a 6-2, 6-1 victory at No. 1 singles over MV senior Gavin Weaver, one of the league's top three players. Earlier this season, Weaver fell 6-4 in the third set to Greenfield's Nathan Roberts, a returning All-State Singles player considered to the the top player in the HHC. Roberts also edged Darby in a third-set tiebreaker a month ago. But Monday night, Weaver's power was ineffective against Darby.
Another freshman, Charlie Vannatter, won 6-1, 6-0 at No. 2 singles to finish 17-5 in his first season at No. 2 singles.
And sophomore Luke Atkinson cruised 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3 singles to improve to 17-3 at No. 3 singles.
