Boys Tennis Topples Kent Denver to Claim First State Title in Seven Years, Second Overall

After finishing runner-up to Class 4A rival Kent Denver School in the last two Boys Tennis State Championship tournaments, the No. 2-seeded Colorado Academy Mustangs turned the tables on the No. 1 Sun Devils in their meetup at Denver Tennis Park on Tuesday, October 21. CA’s Varsity Boys were elated to win four out of seven matches to clinch their first Championship trophy since 2018, only the second in the program’s history.

The victory followed on the heels of the squad’s impressive trio of 7-0 shutouts against Peak to Peak Charter School, George Washington High School, and Thomas Jefferson High School in playoff meetings, and it landed a CA-red cherry on top of the three individual State Titles already nabbed by team members on the Saturday before the final matchup with Kent.

It was a dominant finish to the season, according to Head Coach Noah Tondre—named Class 4A Coach of the Year—and it was clear evidence of one thing: “Mentally, these boys just got better every day. In some of our early-season matches, there was negative emotion on the court. But working with Sydney (Prokupek Nolan ’17), CA’s new Mental Performance Coach, really turned the season around for us. I want to give the whole team a ‘Most Improved’ award.”

Throughout the fall, relates Tondre, he and Nolan worked to challenge each team member to focus on being present, acknowledging difficult emotions, and leaving a legacy they could be proud of. The result was some of the best Mustang team tennis in years, Tondre says. “There was zero negative emotion on Championship day.”

Leading the way were the individual State Champions—Senior Co-Captain Oliver Neely at No. 2 Singles, Sophomore Hendrik Jordaan and Junior Peter Owen at #1 Doubles, and Sophomore CJ Marshall and Senior Thomas Rollhaus at #3 Doubles—who secured the early momentum in the best-of-seven competition Tuesday. Senior Co-Captain Craig Stapleton, who lost to his #3 Singles Sun Devil opponent in the individual tournament and during the regular season as well, clinched the winning fourth match for the Mustangs by avenging the earlier losses.

The first to notch a win for CA, Jordaan and Owen are “probably the best #1 Doubles team in the state,” Tondre estimates. But, he says, “Everyone was nervous to take the court against Kent, so I gave Jordaan and Owen a job to do: Go out there and take care of business.”

Once they did, it didn’t take long for Neely to put away his match, and for Marshall and Rollhaus to quickly seal their own win. With CA ahead 3-0, it all came down to Stapleton’s match against the rival who’d beaten him before. 

As Co-Captain alongside Neely, relates Tondre, Stapleton had gradually come into his own as a leader over the course of the season. “By the last practice, he was like a new person—all over his teammates, making sure everyone was ready and engaged for the match with Kent.”

And in his deciding Championship victory, Stapleton proved he’d grown as a player, too. 

Tondre says that in addition to mental performance, the team’s philosophy of staying “loose” was a big part of their success—and the story behind Stapleton’s improbable win. “For us, staying loose has a very specific meaning: When you’re ahead, especially on the big points, it’s easy to get tight and lose focus. At CA, ‘loose’ means reminding yourself to swing free and get to the net—to stay confident and aggressive.” 

No surprise: Stapleton earned the match-winning point by following an approach shot in to the net.

Still, it wasn’t the individual performances that most distinguished the 2025 Mustang Boys Tennis season; it was the way an unusually broad range of players came together as a team. From first-time Varsity player Luka Jovanovic, a Ninth Grader playing at #2 Doubles, to Senior Mitchell Sindler, another Varsity first-timer who was part of a #4 Doubles pair that had never taken a set from Kent Denver until the Championship tournament, this group of student-athletes was the tightest he’s seen, says Tondre.

One of the very first things he and Nolan talked to the players about as the season got underway was the idea of leaving a legacy. And now, with a strong core of rising young players primed to come back next season, Tondre states, “I think this is the start of that legacy.”

All Photos from the Championship match