Carter Kuntz returns a shot during 1 doubles play for Triton during Thursday’s HNAC Tournament finals in Knox. (Photos by James Costello)

KNOX — Triton tennis was hoping to throw an upset against host Knox at Thursday’s Hoosier North Athletic Conference Tournament finals. Unfortunately for the Trojans, history repeated itself.

The Redskins backed up a pair of HNAC round robin wins over Triton, and the hosts’ 4-1 victory gave their program a fourth straight conference title.

As in their previous two meetings, the Trojans’ lone win came at 1 doubles, where Chase Butler and Carter Kuntz collected All-HNAC honors via a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Knox’s Davan Himes and Josh Fletcher.

“The 1 doubles played pretty solid in the conference all year so they showed what they had from the beginning of the year to the end of the year,” said Triton coach Allen Peckham. “But I felt like we really improved at the other four spots. I really looked at our scores from the first time we played Knox to now; we actually played a lot more competitive than we did at the beginning of the year. That’s what you try to look for is improvement.”

Triton’s 2 doubles lineup of Grant Eib and Tyler Heckaman were competitive in their match with Ethan Sanders and Brock Taulbee but lost a few key points here and there on the way to a 6-4, 6-4 loss in Thursday’s conference championship round. Jared Bules took six games from Jake Krueger at 2 singles but ultimately fell 6-3, 6-3, and Connor Large lost a 6-1, 6-2 match with Zac Eby in the 3 singles finale. John Gardner was similarly competitive with Eian Coad in the first set at the top singles spot, but after a 6-3 first set loss, an injury to his left leg forced him to retire early in the second.

John Gardner jumps for a shot during the first set at 1 singles Thursday.

Gardner actually experienced a string of bad luck at the two-day HNAC tourney, said Peckham.

“Yesterday he broke his string to his racket so he was using a backup racket tonight even,” he recalled. “He said in the last game of the first set he came down wrong, and he just felt a twinge right in his shin.

“He couldn’t do anything on it so he had to default. We’ll get him looked at and see what happens for the sectional next week.”

With just two seniors on this year’s squad in Butler and Kuntz, Peckham was already looking forward to his team’s conference prospects for next season, when Knox and a number of other HNAC schools will take heavy losses to graduation.

“It looks promising for next year. We have all three of our singles back. A lot of the opponents lose their singles players, and that’s where the strength was at this year I felt like,” he said. “We’re in good shape.”

Also Thursday, North Judson-San Pierre topped short-handed LaVille 5-0 in the consolation finals.

Gavin Alonso defeated Zach Rutherford 10-1 at 1 singles, Hayden Kaminski won by an identical score opposite David Clayton at 2 singles, and Caleb Shireman won via forfeit at 3 singles. Kyle Burkett and Blake Shell also won by forfeit at 1 doubles, as did Gavin Legac and Andrew Attinger at 2 doubles.