For Tomas Todd, pressure is not burdensome. It is earned, a sign of success.

Last year, Summit set a district record for state qualifiers en route to winning its fourth straight Class 5A boys tennis state championship. The Storm recorded the second-most points, 24.5, ever scored at the 5A state tournament. They boasted the singles state champion and both the winner and runner-up in the doubles final.

Summit was dominant last season. The program seemingly has been since 2009. Certainly pressure has mounted for this season’s Storm to maintain the status quo. Good, Todd says.

“Pressure is a privilege,” says the senior, who qualified for doubles at state last season. “We live by that on this team. Returning after four (state titles) in a row, the pressure that’s on us is a privilege.”

Of the 11 state titles awarded in 5A boys tennis since the OSAA expanded to six classifications before the 2007 season, seven have been won by Summit — all since 2009. The maximum number of qualifiers a team can send to state is 12 (four singles players, four doubles teams); last season, the Storm qualified 10 for the state tournament. They nearly doubled the 12.5 team points of runner-up Crescent Valley, and they tied for the most state competitors in any classification.

Aspirations for the Storm could not be any loftier, right? Think again.

“We’ve got 20 kids that are all in,” says 17th-year Summit coach Josh Cordell. “For me, that’s unbelievable. We haven’t had that before. We’ve got really high expectations. Kids have been hitting year-round. It’s the start of the season, and there’s that excitement to it, but it also feels like we’ve been doing this for a while.”

Though the Storm graduated singles state champion Carter Quigley and doubles champs Garen Gasparovic and Peter Rutherford, as well as doubles runner-up Andy Jones, Summit returns with a depth previously unseen by its longtime coach.

“We lost the most firepower we’ve ever lost in my 17 years,” Cordell says. “But we also have the most kids that play year-round that we’ve ever had. … You’ve got to have those top guys, which we do, but we’re a much deeper team than other 5A teams.”

In addition to Todd, back for the Storm is Dylan Warren, who teamed with Jones to take second at state in the doubles bracket. Also returning are doubles state qualifiers Joshua Marine and David Feldman and singles qualifier Ryan Abbott. And after a two-year leave to play at a tennis academy in California, Logan Hausler is back for Summit. Hausler was part of the Storm’s second-place doubles team as a freshman in 2015.

“I’m excited. I’m ready,” Hausler says. “I play better when I don’t think about the pressure and I just play my game.”

That strain, however, is difficult to ignore. After all, few programs have been more successful than Summit over the past nine years.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure,” Warren says. “We had such good teammates. … It’s hard to live up to it, but I think we can. These guys, if we train them well, could be just as good, if not better.”

“The expectations have gotten crazy,” Cordell adds. “The expectations the kids put on themselves, I have to kind of reel them in. Yes, we want to accomplish all this great stuff, but really, none of that matters. We just want to be the best we can be, and if we are, that stuff could work itself out. … We really try to focus on competing against ourselves and being the best they can be, and they’re doing it.”

Cordell concedes that 5A Special District 1 could be much more competitive this season. The Storm understand that, the coach says, noting that “this is not a send-12-guys-to-state kind of year.”

Still, Cordell continues, Summit possesses the talent and depth to make another run at the state championship. If that goal is accomplished, here in the Storm’s final year in 5A as they are set to join 6A next year, this state title would trump all others.

“For us, this is the year where it’s like, if we pull out a team state championship, I’m going to be really stoked,” Cordell says. “I feel like this would be our biggest one.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com