TOPEKA – Hesston tennis coach Daniel Jantz was caught a bit off guard when learning what kind of chances Swather senior Braiden Liechty had given he and his teammates of capturing this year’s Class 4A state championship at the start of the season.
 
“Really?” Jantz said when hearing Liechty’s answer, which was an emphatic “Zero.”
 
“Usually, he’s overconfident if anything,” Jantz said of his senior standout. “That surprises me a bit.”
 
But perhaps that speaks to just what kind of season the Swathers were able to turn in this spring in bringing home the program’s first state championship since claiming the Class 3-1A state title in 2015.
 
Hesston returned only two state qualifiers from last year’s team that finished fourth in the team standings – Liechty, who captured the state doubles title with Asher Deutschendorf, and Janmejay Patwardhan, who finished fifth in singles. With Liechty taking on a new doubles partner and the team leaning heavily on two first-year players in the program in supporting roles as well as another varsity newcomer, the Swathers hardly had the look of a state contender at the start of the season.
 
“I thought we were going to get crushed,” Liechty said.
 
Instead, the Swathers crushed it. When everything was all said and done Saturday at Kossover Tennis Center, Hesston not only had the look of a champion, but a dominating one. The Swathers all but locked up the title with a strong showing on Friday, advancing both doubles teams to the semifinals as well as seeing Patwardhan make the singles semifinals. 
 
On Saturday, all four Swather entries wound up with state medals and Hesston finished with 43 points to finish well ahead of runner-up McPherson, which scored 31 points. Parsons, which shared the team championship a year ago with Winfield, finished third with 29 points.
 
“I was hoping we’d have a chance,” Jantz said of his preseason thoughts about his team’s chances at a state title this spring. “I figured we’d have two strong entries with Braiden and Janmejay, one way or another. We were just trying to piece together our doubles. I did not expect we’d take the leap that we did.
 
“I was hopeful because we had a deep team, but they exceeded my expectations. … They played their butts off when it mattered so the credit goes to the kids. They owned the moment.”
 

 
Hesston’s known commodities produced in the way Jantz had hoped they might.
 
Returning as Hesston’s No. 1 singles player, Patwardhan put together a 26-5 record ahead of the state to go in as the No. 2 seed behind three-time state runner-up Wyatt Shultz of Parsons. Seemingly on a collision course to meet up with Shultz in the finals, Patwardhan got a big-time scare in Friday’s semifinals, fighting off four match points to pull out a 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 quarterfinal victory over Wellington’s Maverick Peterson.
 
“It was physically draining, mentally draining,” Patwardhan said of the match. “But I’m so glad I powered through it.”
 
He showed no ill effects in Saturday’s semifinals, powering past Winfield’s Josh Moore 6-4, 6-0 to earn a shot at Shultz, who took a 6-2, 6-2 win over Iola’s Mosiah Fawson in his semifinal. And early in the championship match, he was every bit Shultz’s equal, holding the opening serve for a 1-0 lead and then breaking Shultz’s second service turn after Shultz had broken him, sitting tied 2-2 through four games.
 
But from there, it was all Shultz. Patwardhan could never generate enough offense and saw Shultz methodically pick him apart as the Viking polished off the first set 6-2 and then blanked Patwardhan 6-0 in the second set.
 
“I made some errors, but it was also him just hitting all the corners, the lines, everything,” Patwardhan said. “He’s just a really good player. I’m so happy, though. I was hoping for top-three placement and got second.”
 

 
Liechty, meanwhile, opened the year playing singles as well after the graduation of Deutchendorf from their championship doubles team from a year ago after taking third at state as a pair in 2024. But after meeting with mixed success, going 14-7, he returned to doubles and paired with fellow senior Tim van Bergeijk, who was a member of last year’s varsity but didn’t qualify for state.
 
Their pairing wasn’t exactly an immediate success.
 
“One of our first tournaments we lost to El Dorado’s mixed doubles team,” Liechty said of Wildcat foes Reece Knight, who placed seventh at state in singles, and Theron Mays, who ended up teaming with Lane Eck and finished 11th at state in doubles. “I didn’t really have high hopes for us after that.”
 
But after also losing to a team from Wichita Collegiate at that same tournament, the duo of Liechty and van Bergeijk found their chemistry. They didn’t lose again ahead of state, knocking off Buhler’s tandem of Reuben Harder and Jaxton Gillette in the regional semifinals before beating teammates Jerick Humphreys and Ben Bartlett for the regional title.
 
“We tried Braiden at singles, but he’s just more calm in doubles,” Jantz said. “He doesn’t have to be patient so he can use his firepower. He’s the best shot-maker on our team and when he can relax and play doubles, he’s hard to stop.”
 
At state they once again ran into the Buhler tandem of Harder and Gillette in the semifinals and once again claimed a 6-3, 6-3 win to put Liechty in the title match for the second straight year. Taking on top-seeded Matt McLenon and Brodie Small of Independence in the finals, Liechty and van Bergeijk won the opening game of the match but couldn’t keep the momentum going and fell 6-2 in the opening set. After getting down 4-2 the second set, the Swather duo battled back to a 5-4 deficit before the Bulldog duo finished off the 6-4 victory to deny Liechty a second straight state title.
 
“We just really couldn’t find it at the time when it mattered the most,” Liechty said. “When we beat Buhler in regionals, I felt we had a chance. But second place, I was pretty happy with it.”
 

 
As much as the runner-up finishes paved the way for Hesston’s third overall state championship, it was the performances of their other two entries that really solidified things.
 
Bartlett spent last season on Hesston’s JV while Humphreys didn’t even play tennis last spring. Both began the year with different partners – Bartlett teaming with van Bergeijk for the first month while Liechty was playing singles and Humphreys teaming with Ethan Sebits for two tournaments and freshman Henry White for one tournament – but joined forces at the April 21 Hillsboro Invitational.
 
After going 2-1 that day and then 3-2 at the Hesston Invitational on April 28, they won the No. 2 doubles title at the Central Kansas League meet and then reached the regional finals before falling to their Swather teammates.
 
Earning the No. 4 seed for the state tournament, Humphreys and Bartlett backed it up with a pair of comfortable wins in their first two matches on Friday to clinch a spot in the semifinals. The duo went 0-2 on Saturday, falling 6-1, 6-3 to McLenon and Small in the semifinals and then retiring in the third set of the third-place match against Buhler’s Harder and Gillette after Bartlett began having crippling cramps in his right leg after each team had won a 6-4 set.
 
The fourth-place finish was huge for the Swathers.
 
“Ben and Jerick really came on that last month when we did all that switching up,” Jantz said. “Jerick didn’t play last year and Ben wasn’t in our top six. For them to make that leap was just awesome. Jerick’s an athlete and the thing about him and Henry is they’ve hit so many tennis balls after practice or come out on weekends or whatever. Once they got into it, they’re competitive enough kids that they were going to put in the work.”
 

 
An incoming freshman this year, White easily could have opted for track, which he did in middle school. But with his family having a strong tennis background in Hesston, he opted to take that route instead his freshman year.
 
“I was kind of getting tired of track and had some good friends going out and I wanted to try it,” he said.
 
Beginning the year on JV before moving up to doubles, White settled in at the No. 2 singles spot in mid-April and went 10-5 ahead of state. After an off day at regionals led to a sixth-place finish, White had a strong finish to his freshman season at state.
 
He won his first match before falling to No. 3 seed Josh Moore of Winfield in the second round. But he bounced back from that defeat with two straight consolation wins, clinching a state medal with an 8-5 win over Wellington’s Gannon Worley.
 
White dropped his next two matches, but finished with an 8-1 win over Buhler’s Cayden Davis to place 11th.
 
“I did not really plan on making it to the second day,” he said. “So finishing 11th I’m very pleased with that.”
 

 
The third state title in program history, the championship was the first in Class 4A, the previous two (2015, 1987) coming in Class 3-1A. And for both Liechty and Patwardhan, helping the Swathers get the team crown far out-weighed any disappointment in falling just short of getting state championships in their respective divisions.
 
“That was the main goal, get a team championship,” Patwardhan said. “It’s something you don’t really fathom and it’s a great feeling and great experience.”
 
Liechty agreed.
 
“That’s probably why I’m so happy,” Liechty said. “The athleticism of the new people was just huge. They adapt so well and are so athletic.”
 
That confidence that Jantz said Liechty had? Well, he showed it in assessing Hesston’s chances of repeating as state champions next year with he and van Bergeijk the lone losses to graduation.
 
“Honestly, Ben and Jerick are probably favorites to win (the doubles title) and Janmejay should win singles,” he said. “We’re probably going to win it again next year. It’s going to be back-to-back. Hopefully. I don’t want to sound too cocky, but I have a lot of confidence in my boys.”
 
McPherson will be a top challenger next year after finishing runner-up this year. The Bullpups didn’t have a semifinalist in either singles or doubles, but got top-six placings from three of its four state entries.
 
Rylan Unruh beat teammate Cooper Bohme in the singles fifth-place match while the tandem of Jonas Emery and Mason Eisenbarth added a fifth-place finish in doubles.
 
Independence had all three of its entries place in taking third, led by the state title from McLenon and Small in doubles. The doubles team of Kevin Mah and Heston Smith finished seventh and Brody Cooley added a 10th in singles.
 

 
CLASS 4A STATE TENNIS
 
At Kossover Tennis Center, Topeka
 
TEAM SCORES
 
Hesston 43, McPherson 31, Independence 29, Parsons 25, Winfield 23, Buhler 22, El Dorado 14, Iola 12, Wellington 8, Chanute 7, Bishop Miege 3, Augusta 2, Clay Center 2, Hayden 2, Scott City 2, Colby 1.