Matt McLenon very easily could have chosen to spend his senior season holding down the No. 1 singles spot for Independence.
 
He’d lost his doubles partner from a year ago – Zach Scott, with whom he placed ninth at the Class 4A state tournament. And the top singles spot was open after the graduation of Keith Sanders, who finished fourth at state last year.
 
Enjoying some success filling that role through the early part of this season, posting an 8-4 record with one of those losses a medical default, McLenon seemed like a good fit in that spot for the duration of the season.
 
“I really thought about it and played a few tournaments and did fairly well,” he said. “But it just was less comfortable. And once we played together, it was like, ‘I’m just going to stay with what I know.’”
 
The “We” McLenon referred to was his pairing with sophomore Brodie Small, a varsity newcomer this season. The two had played an early April tournament together, going 3-0, before McLenon tried his hand at both singles and as a doubles partner with Bulldog junior Heston Smith.
 
But after those dabblings, McLenon and Small returned as a tandem in late April and it didn’t take long for them to realize, that was the right combination.
 
A state championship winning combination, in fact.
 

 
Falling in line with Independence’s tradition of producing Class 4A state doubles champions, McLenon and Small added their names to the legacy at Topeka’s Kossover Tennis Center. Despite their relatively brief unison, the Bulldog duo earned the No. 1 seed for the state tournament and then went out and backed it up.
 
McLenon and Small cruised into the semifinals with 6-0, 6-2 and 6-1, 6-3 wins on Friday and then reached the finals on Saturday with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Hesston’s Jerick Humphreys and Ben Bartlett in the semifinals.
 
Facing another Hesston team in the state championship match – one that included returning state doubles champion Braiden Liechty, who won the title last year with Asher Deutschendorf and this year was paired with Tim  van Bergeijk – McLenon and Small finished off their run to a state title with a 6-2, 6-4 victory.
 
“All these people I’ve looked up to for so long and now I’m up there with them,” Small said. “It’s pretty unbelievable.”
 
The state doubles title was the fourth in the last five years for Independence. The three previous ones came in three consecutive seasons with former Bulldog standout Camdon Julian pairing with three different partners to win state titles – Brecken Bertie in 2022, Easton Morris in 2023 and Aiden Denney in 2024.
 
Both McLenon and Small said Julian was a huge role model, albeit for different somewhat reasons.
 
“He’s a lefty like me,” Small said.
 

 
“His track record and the way he played – he was super confident and that’s something I wanted to be,” said McLenon, who was a teammate with Julian during his first two high school seasons. “This year, it’s definitely helped a lot.”
 
While McLenon was playing singles and teaming with Smith, Small teamed with senior Kevin Mah and the two had plenty of success, going 11-2. But once McLenon made the full commitment to return to doubles for good, he re-joined Small while Mah teamed with Smith, whom he had qualified for state with a year ago.
 
Though they dropped matches in their first two tournaments together, McLenon said those losses told the duo they had what it took to win a state title. One was a tough 8-5 loss to Wichita Collegiate’s Charlie Gentile and Maddox Drumright, who captured the Class 3-1A doubles title this year. The other was an 8-3 loss to Bishop Carroll’s Gabe Weber and Braeden Dugan, who were undefeated Class 5A doubles champions this year.
 
The loss to the Carroll champs came at the Wichita Collegiate Tournament of Champions where the Independence duo finished third.
 
“That’s when it really set in,” McLenon said. “That’s one of the toughest tournaments there is and we got third. We were playing right with them and so we were like, ‘We can do this.’
 
“We’re both smart tennis players. So instead of trying to crank the ball every time or play a passive game, we attack it. And then the righty-lefty combo. His lefty spin throws people off all the time and then the power I try to put on my shots a lot of people can’t handle it. Whichever one of us they hit it to, they’re going to have a different barrier to overcome to get the ball back over the net.”
 

 
McLenon and Small dropped the first game to Liechty and van Bergeijk in the championship match and were still tied 2-2 through four games. McLenon and Scott had seen their bid for a title a year ago end with a quarterfinal loss to Liechty and Deutschendorf and he wasn’t about to let the Swather standout get the best of him again.
 
The Bulldogs broke the Swathers’ serve in the fifth game and then again two games later to win the final four games for the 6-2 first-set win. They got down 2-1 in the second set but won three straight games to take a 4-2 lead. Each team held serve the rest of the way with the Bulldogs winning 6-4.
 
The title had special family meanings for both. McLenon’s mother, Gina, is Independence’s head girls coach and an assistant coach for the boys program. His title gave her the first she could celebrate with a child with his younger sister, Morgan, falling just short in that quest in the fall, placing fourth in doubles with Brooklyn Mattix.
 
Small, meanwhile, got to somewhat follow in his older brother’s footsteps in becoming a state champion. Ethan Small won a state title for Independence last spring, his crown coming in golf as he won the Class 4A state championship by a single stroke.
 
“I for sure had to live up to it,” Brodie said. “I was so proud of him, but that put some pressure on me. In tennis, that’s my sport and I have to get one for myself.”
 
McLenon and Small finished the season 19-2 with their only losses coming to those other state champions. They helped Independence finish with a team trophy as well as the Bulldogs took third with 29 points, two behind runner-up McPherson. Hesston won the team title with 43 points, helped by the runner-up finish in doubles from Liechty and van Bergeijk, who also had a late-season unison and ended with a 13-3 record.
 
Buhler’s Reuben Harder and Jaxton Gillette took third in doubles, outlasting Hesston’s Humphreys and Bartlett in the third place match. Both teams won a set by a 6-4 score before Bartlett began to experience severe cramping and had to retire.
 

CLASS 4A STATE TENNIS
 
At Kossover Tennis Center, Topeka
 
DOUBLES
 
Championship – Matt McLenon/Brodie Small, Independence def. Braiden Liechty/Tim van Bergeijk, Hesston, 6-2, 6-4. Third place – Reuben Harder/Jaxton Gillette, Buhler def. Jerick Humphreys/Ben Bartlett, Hesston, 6-4, 4-6, 4-3 (retired). Fifth place – Jonas Emery/Mason Eisenbarth, McPherson def. Cole Kennett/Kai Gregory, Parsons, 8-6. Seventh place – Kevin Mah/Heston Smith, Independence def. Titus Bortzfield/Quinn Brown, Buhler, 8-5. Ninth place – Ayden Cummings/Logan Bilby, Chanute def. Corden Cuington/Evan Hutto, Winfield, 8-6. 11th place – Theron Mays/Lane Eck, El Dorado def. Zeke Rodriguez/Max Lukert, Bishop Miege, 8-3.