By RICHIE HALL
INDIANAPOLIS – Hamilton Southeastern tennis players Misha Bukkasagaram and Emily Orme are state medalists once more.
The Royals seniors finished their high school careers Saturday at the IHSAA state doubles tournament, reaching the semi-finals of the event for the second year in a row. Bukkasagaram and Orme dropped their semi-final match to the South Bend St. Joseph team of sophomore Ashi Amalnathan and freshman Anni Amalnathan 6-0, 6-2.
The Amalnathans quickly won the first set, then broke serve to take the first game of the second set. The Royals broke back to get on the board, and would later get another service break to pull within 4-2. But the St. Joseph team won the next two games, using their precise and powerful groundstrokes to take the match.
“They are both singles players, and we might not be used to that,” said Bukkasagaram. “But a similar kind of thing happened at state last year. It’s kind of hard to keep coming in, which is our strength, when the balls are so deep in the court. When they were doing that a lot, it was hard to come in, so we weren’t able to get a quick start. But I think if we continued how we did in that second set, we would have came out with a better outcome if we started that way.”
Still, the Royals team kept fighting, and seemed to get better as the match went on. Orme agreed with that, saying also “I think the better the players are, the harder they hit. It makes us hit harder as well.”
Bukkasagaram and Orme finished their season with a 21-5 record, and won sectional and regional championships in the doubles tournament for the second year in a row.
“They’ve been her before and they’re seniors,” said HSE coach Doug Gernert. “They learn a lot about themselves and about pushing through adversity and focusing down and that kind of stuff.” The coach also said he hoped that the fans who watched, especially the underclassmen who will be playing next year, will “get a look at what it takes to be here, the skill level it takes to be here, the commitment, the work ethic and just what it takes to really play at this sort of level.”
“I can’t say I was expecting it to make it this far,” said Bukkasagaram. “But overall, I think I’m pretty proud of how we played in the state tournament, throughout the season, and just building up and continuing to get better as the season progressed.”
“Last year, we made it this far, but at the beginning of the season, I feel like we had a rough start and we lost a few matches and so we weren’t as confident to make it this far,” said Orme. “But I’m pretty proud of how we did in the post-season.”
Bukkasagaram is headed to the University of Evansville where she will enter the eight-year B/MD program, or “Baccalaureate to Doctor of Medicine.” Orme will enroll at Indiana University to study biology. Both will now be playing tennis for fun, and thoroughly enjoyed their tennis-playing days at Southeastern.
“I would say the best thing about it is the team and the coach and Emily,” said Bukkasagaram.
“It was definitely the best part of high school from my perspective,” said Orme.
As a team, the Royals finished the season ranked 10th in the state, and had 11 dual meet wins. Southeastern also finished second in Hoosier Crossroads Conference play, a league that at one point had seven of its eight teams ranked in the top 20.
“I think we had a really good, strong season,” said Gernert. He finished his first year as the Royals’ head coach.
“I’ve been the assistant before and I didn’t really appreciate how much the head coach really does and runs things,” said Gernert. “I’ll tell you what, I really couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t had really good support staff from both the parents and from my assistant coach Georgia Schwoeppe. That really makes a difference.”