Waraw coach Rick Orban hugs Nolan Knight after he and two doubles partner Reuben Williams, left, clinched the Tigers their third match point at the Culver Military Academy Regional Tuesday night. (Photos by James Costello)

WARSAW — Warsaw edged past Wabash in the Tigers’ regional tennis opener Tuesday night. Now comes the hard part.

Warsaw won points at three singles and on both doubles courts to secure the first three match points in what would ultimately become a 3-2 decision at the indoor courts at the Gable Tennis Complex in Culver, while three-time defending champion and host Culver Military dispatched challenger Plymouth 4-1 in the other bracket after a rain delay on the outdoor courts, setting up a championship tilt between the Tigers and the Eagles tonight at 5 p.m.

Headed into Tuesday’s regional semi, Warsaw coach Rick Orban was expecting a 3-2 result. He knew the Apaches’ biggest weakness was at three singles, and he hoped Caleb Williams could get off the court quickly opposite Gage Ballard, which he did, 6-0, 6-0. After that, it was simply a matter of the Tigers’ doubles tandems coming through, which they did.

Warsaw one doubles player Bailey Buhrt goes to his backhand.

First Bailey Buhrt and Spencer Britton held off Matt Stein and Alex Driscoll, 6-1, 6-4, on the one doubles court and then Nolan Knight and Reuben Williams surged in the second set to finish off Asif Khan and Jonah France, 7-5, 6-2, and clinch the third match point for their team.

The Tigers thus handed 20-win Wabash just its second loss of the year and first since the championship of the Logansport Invite all the way back on Aug. 26.

“We talked about it last night, Jan and I, and we said 3-2 — if we were going to win this, we were going to win it 3-2,” said Orban. “Our three singles came out to play. We knew that was a weakness for Wabash. Caleb did an incredible job. And then naturally our one and two doubles. That’s a good team they’ve got. Their two doubles team looked really good. I don’t think our two doubles could’ve played any better, and that’s what it took to win the match.”

Leading by a tenuous 3-2 margin after a nip-tuck first set, Knight and Williams broke Khan and France in a pivotal sixth game in the second set. The Warsaw duo quickly held serve in the next game, then shut out their opponents in the final game to clinch their team the win.

“Once we won that game, our kids, you could just see they got pumped up, and the Wabash kids kind of went down,” said Orban of the big service break in the second set at two doubles. “And that’s when I talked to the kids and I just said ‘Focus. Every return is a good return. Every serve is a good serve. Stay aggressive. Poach, fake, and trust me guys, you’ll win these next games.’ And they did. Body language is everything in tennis because the mental game is everything, and you could just see our two kids pump it up and go ‘Yeah, we got this.’ So that was pretty cool.”

Williams gets fired up Tuesday.

Although the final score went down in the books as 3-2, the Tigers had already won the meet before the Apaches earned either of their points.

Luke Mattern defeated Kyler Bartol via 6-2, 7-5 decision at two singles, and Rob Ford battled back from an opening set loss to Tigers number one Colton Lind for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 win in the final match to conclude Tuesday. Ford stays alive in the state singles tournament with the win, and Lind is no longer eligible for the singles tourney should Warsaw lose to CMA tonight.

“Their kid played a heck of a match. He’s a sophomore, and he played just mentally strong all the way through it,” said Orban. “He’s got a huge advantage — he’s a lefty, and you just don’t face that many lefties, so the spin is slightly different. But I was proud of Colton; he took him right to the very end.”

The most glaring feature of Lind’s and Ford’s third set was the competitors’ inability to hold serve. They broke each other in five straight games before Ford finally held in a narrow final game, which saw two deuce points.

Tigers number one Colton Lind gets ready to serve.

“It was kind of funny. I’m a USTA official too so I know the officials here really well, and Mark turned around and said to me ‘Holding serve is a lost art,’ and that’s almost what it looked like tonight,” Orban said. “I think Colton got in a little bit of a rush on his first serves. He didn’t make near the amount of first serves that he normally makes, and that makes a huge difference.”

Meanwhile Tuesday, CMA eliminated Plymouth, 4-1.

The Pilgrims’ lone match point came at one singles, where Tommy Holloway defeated Ian Smith, 6-3, 6-4. Holloway stays alive in the singles tournament and will play Rochester’s Enrique Pomares-Perego — a 7-5, 6-0 winner over Maconaquah’s Cole Borden Tuesday — at the IHSAA Singles Regional at LaPorte on Saturday.

Nikolas Warnholtz rebounded from a first-set loss to beat Mitch Rose, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, at two singles, and Henry Bilicic and Sebastian Rodriguez survived another three-setter with Plymouth’s Clay Hilliard and Adam Hunter, 6-7(4-7), 6-3, 6-1, at one doubles. Patrick Wilson defeated Andy Rostron 6-3, 6-1 at the three spot, and Zhaoqi Huang and Peter Gallagher downed Dylan Voreis and Shaun Frantz, 6-1, 6-3, in two doubles play.

The Eagles swept the Tigers 5-0 in the two teams’ last meeting back on Aug. 30, but that decision was closer than the final score suggested, said Orban, and his team will be ready in the final.

“When we played CMA Colton was up 5-2 in the first set and lost. Our one doubles was up 5-2 in the second set and lost. Two doubles was up 5-2 and lost, and trust me, I reminded them of that,” said Orban. “It’s not like we would come in here and go… ‘Wow, we lost 5-0; we don’t have a shot.’

“We’ll come in with confidence.”