FRUITPORT – The Mona Shores No. 1 doubles team won a championship on Saturday at the Greater Muskegon Athletic Association Boys City Tennis Tournament.

The twist is that the champion team is actually a mixed doubles team, with a girl and boy playing together in an otherwise all male tournament.

Senior Lydia Sowles and sophomore Collin Khatir teamed together to beat Whitehall’s Sam Cole and Isaac VanAmberg 6-3, 7-5 in the No. 1 doubles finals. They also won two earlier matches to qualify for the finals.

Sowles has actually been playing boys tennis in the fall for the past three years, because she plays for the Mona Shores girls soccer team in the spring, and girls tennis is in the same season. This is the first year she’s played with Khatir, and the two of them only have an 11-10 record, but they were certainly good on Saturday.

Collin Khatir and Lydia Sowles, the mixed doubles team that won the championship at the boys city tournament.

“We didn’t in the beginning, but we’ve gotten better,” Khatir said, when asked how they’ve come together as a team.

Mona Shores Coach Tracy Hackney said Sowles has never been afraid to play tennis against boys, which was obvious to anyone who watched her play on Saturday.

“(Sowles and Khatir) are excited to play together and they have good team chemistry,” she said. “They kind of balance each other out. Lydia actually has a lot of experience, it doesn’t faze her, and it doesn’t faze our team.”

Sowles and Khatir were part of a Mona Shores landslide on Saturday. The Sailors won their second straight GMAA tournament by claiming the championship in seven of the eight flights.

Mona Shores finished with 46 points, followed by Whitehall (33), North Muskegon (30), Reeths-Puffer (26), Western Michigan Christian (23) and Fruitport (10).

No. 1 singles champion Drew Hackney.

The city meet title is just the latest accomplishment for the Sailors, who are 5-0 in O-K Green conference play and have a chance to win the regular season title if they can beat Holland on Monday.

Mona Shores plays a very tough schedule against other large schools, but Coach Hackney said it’s always exciting to win the city meet.

“The city has such a fun tradition, with all the schools here – big schools and little schools – and a lot of kids who know each other,” she said. “It’s a fun atmosphere.”

The top individual champion for Mona Shores was Drew Hackney, a sophomore who captured his second straight city title in No. 1 singles, beating Whitehall’s Ashton Trnka in the finals 6-1, 6-2. Hackney is one of the top young players in the state, and chances are good that he will end up being a four-time city champion in No. 1 singles.

Whitehall’s Ashton Trnka, who was the runner-up in No. 1 singles.

As a freshman Hackney advanced all the way to the state quarterfinals and could be a strong contender to win an individual state title this season.

He said he learned last year to be more aggressive in matches, particularly against older players who are bigger and tend to hit the ball harder.

“That’s been one of my goals this year, to take charge and get to the net more and try to control the play,” said Hackney, who has a 20-1 record this season.

Other individual flight champions for Mona Shores were Kayden Hellmann (No. 2 singles), Victor Powell (No. 4 singles), Bobby Wasserman and Luke Uptrigrove (No. 2 doubles), Sam Uptrigrove and Tommy Stewart (No. 3 doubles), and Liam Gossett and Josiah Bement (No. 4 doubles).

Powell was seeded second coming into the tournament, and won his title by upsetting top-seeded Luke Hall of North Muskegon.

Ethan Komen of North Muskegon won the title in No. 3 singles.

Flight runners-up were Trnka (No. 1 singles), Sam Liggett of Western Michigan Christian (No. 2 singles), Rob Hentschel of Whitehall (No. 3 singles), Hall of North Muskegon (No. 4 singles), Cole and VanAmberg of Whitehall (No. 1 doubles), Kaden Malotke and Zade Rogers of Reeths-Puffer (No. 2 doubles), Trent VanDam and Quinn Alderink of Reeths-Puffer (No. 3 doubles), and Patrick Cole and Jonathon Hall of North Muskegon (No. 4 doubles).