Many long-standing goals of the Redbird tennis program were achieved during the remarkable 2003 tennis season, as Metamora, for the first time ever, had the undisputed best tennis team in the greater Peoria area.

Winning the Mid-Illini championship has become an increasingly difficult task due to the continued excellence of both Morton and Dunlap.  However, this goal was achieved in 2003 by Metamora with an exclamation point as all six Redbird players went undefeated in the Mid-Illini Conference tournament to clinch the team championship.  Ty Wyffels won the #1 singles championship, Joe Harris and Kyle Shoff won the #1 doubles title, Nate Rauh captured the #2 singles crown, and Andy Ngo and Andrew Laird were the #2 doubles champions.  That all four championship matches came against Morton made the complete domination a little bit sweeter.

Capturing a sectional title, once thought to be an unrealistic goal due to the domination of Bloomington and Richwoods in central Illinois, was also achieved by this record-setting group.  Ty Wyffels defended his 2002 singles sectional title with a long three-set victory in the finals.  Metamora also advanced two doubles teams to the state tournament for the first time ever, with Joe Harris and Kyle Shoff finishing second at the sectional and Andy Ngo and Andrew Laird fourth.  Being presented with the school’s first sectional tennis championship plaque is a moment that many Redbird players and this Redbird coach will cherish forever.

The conference and sectional titles were the pinnacles of the season, but there were certainly many other accomplishments worth noting as well.  Metamora tied with Rockford Guilford for the title of the Red & White Invitational; Guilford went on to finish 7th in the state.  Harris and Shoff won the doubles title, defeating a Guilford team in the finals which would finish in the top 8 at the state tournament.  The Redbirds also had success at the Bloomington Invitational, finishing a best ever fourth out of sixteen teams.  (The top three were Bloomington (tied for 3rd at state), Danville (tied for 3rd) and Edwardsville (tied for 7th).)

Metamora opened the season in a manner unlike any other season in the past, hosting Palatine, Danville, and Moline in a quadrangular tournament.  These three teams were three of the state’s very best and provided Metamora with outstanding competition at the beginning of the season.

Perhaps the greatest new experience for the Redbird tennis program, though, was participating in the Pitchford Invitational, hosted by Arlington Heights Hersey High School.  The Pitchford invites 32 of the top teams in Illinois in an attempt to more accurately seed the state tournament a few weeks later.  Metamora’s tennis team performed very well, finishing tied for 17th place with Homewood-Flossmoor.

The dual season also went extremely well, with Metamora finishing a school best 13-1.  All 13 of the victories were by at least a margin of 7-2, showing the dominance of this group throughout the six-person line-up.  Metamora played Richwoods for the first time ever and won 9-0.  Victories of 8-1 and 7-2 over Dunlap were sweet, as the Eagles had never lost a Mid-Illini match worse than 5-4 until this year.  The best win of the year, though, was Metamora’s 7-2 achievement at Morton in the last Mid-Illini contest of the year.  This single match will be remembered for a very long time for its excitement, length, and result.

Individually, the season was terrific.  All six of the Redbird players now find their names in the school record books, some dozens of times.  Ty Wyffels set a record for singles wins in a season, Joe Harris and Kyle Shoff set the all-time record for doubles wins in a season, and Nate Rauh is the all-time leader in singles wins by a sophomore.  The list of new records goes on and on and is too lengthy to list here.

At the state tournament, Wyffels and the doubles team of Harris and Shoff narrowly missed being seeded in the top 32.  Joe and Kyle won 3 matches (1 in the main draw, 2 in the back draw) to place themselves in the top 48 in the state.  The duo won 7 matches at the state’s best tournament over the past two years, an accomplishment very infrequently matched by an area doubles team.  Ty won one match in the back draw, and the doubles team of Laird and Ngo also won a thrilling match in the back draw.

As a team, Metamora compiled 6 points to finish tied for 38th.  Realistically, though, many teams finishing ahead of Metamora relied on one or two players to pile up lots of points at the state tournament, skewing the team results.  As a group of six players, Metamora could certainly say it was one of the 20 strongest teams in Illinois in 2003.

The Mid-Illini Conference was once again very, very good, sporting the top three teams in the Peoria metro area.  Morton finished 9-1 in the league and came within 1 point of upsetting Bloomington for the sectional title.  The Potters qualified four players for the state tournament.  Dunlap finished 6-4 in the Mid-Illini, losing twice each to Metamora and Morton.  The Eagles qualified three players for the state tournament.  Those three teams now have a 96-1 record over the past three seasons in matches not involving each other.

Ty Wyffels was named the team’s Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive year.  Andy Ngo received the Most Dedicated Player award, and Nate Rauh was dubbed Most Improved Player.  To cap off the season, Ty Wyffels, Kyle Shoff, Joe Harris, and Nate Rauh were elected to the eight-person All Conference team as well.

Metamora’s senior group, Wyffels, Harris, Ngo, and Laird, was truly a quartet that comes around only once in a great while.  Not only are their names etched forever in the record books as outstanding tennis players who accomplished great things at Metamora High School, but they are also great friends, wonderful team players, and the easiest group to coach imaginable.  They have shown over their four years that truly hard work and dedication to a single cause can yield quite impressive results, ones that will be cherished for a lifetime.  We talk quite often about how what you are doing today is creating your memories that you will hold forever.  What great memories they will be.