Jake Oelrich knew that the Summit boys tennis team would be formidable again this year, but even the coach did not know just how good the team could be.

Last year, the Storm won the Class 6A Mountain Valley Conference and still had some of its heavy hitters returning from that squad.

In its return to the 5A ranks, Summit would face one of its first major challenges Thursday afternoon against Redmond.

Redmond, which has been one of the best Class 5A teams the past couple of seasons, winning a state title in 2019 and finishing fourth last spring (the two seasons prior were canceled due to COVID-19), proved to be a good test to see where the Storm fit.

Summit, with eight state titles since 2009, won all eight of its matches — four singles and four doubles — on its home courts against Redmond Thursday afternoon.

“Redmond was one of the better teams last year,” Oelrich said. “For us, it was a good measuring stick. Our guys had a really good day. It kind of blew me out of the water.”

Ben Bonetto took down Tanner Jones (6-1, 6-0), Wyatt Chance beat Joe Johnson (6-1, 6-2), Nolan Rife beat Aram Valencia (6-1, 6-0) and Austin Berg beat Dashel Ferguson (6-3, 6-2) in the singles matches.

Oelrich left the match against Redmond impressed with the play from Berg, his fourth singles player. “He was new to varsity,” the coach said. “I wasn’t sure what to expect from him, but he crushed it.”

In the doubles, it was another Storm sweep of the Panthers. Max Himstreet and Zack Olander beat Brody Spencer and Alan Altamirano (6-0, 6-0), Aidan MacLennon and Otto Haar defeated Evan Otten and Bryce Duncan (6-0, 6-0), Alex Lindsay and Noah Smith beat Chayse Guerra and Greyson Alejandre (6-0, 6-0), while Jesse Deperro and Ethan Nguyen beat Wes Jinnings and James Knox (6-0, 6-0).

There is still a month left in the season, with the bulk of the schedule still to be played, but Oelrich said he feels confident that the team had already found its lineup (similar to the one that competed against Redmond) to take into mid-May’s district meet.

“We will be switching up the lineup here and there,” Oelrich said. “But we are mostly set for districts.”

While Olander (who was on the MVC winning doubles team last year) and Himstreet finished second in singles a year ago, the Storm added a talented senior in Bonetto.

Bonetto, who had not played on the Summit tennis team prior to this season, is considered one of the best high school tennis players in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

According to tennisrecruiting.net and its weekly Head Recruiting rankings, Bonetto is the sixth best player in Oregon, and 15th best player in the Northwest.

“I decided I wanted to play college tennis,” Bonetto said. “I wanted to put in the time and effort to do that.”

Bonetto spent the past year working on his game several hours a day on the tennis courts at the Athletic Club of Bend. It showed.

He has yet to lose a match this season.

“He is looking really strong,” Oelrich said. “What is crazy is he came into this with the best mentality of, ‘I’m just going to try and win every match and play my best.’ He has been good to have in our team environment.”

Bonetto, who attends an online school, decided to join the Summit team for the tennis matches, competition and experience. He also wanted to be part of the camaraderie that comes with playing on a tennis team.

“I want to go as far as (the team) can go,” Bonetto said. “If that is making it to state, or wherever it is, it will be fun to hang out and play tennis with the guys.”