Thursday was quite a day for Morris senior boys tennis player Connor Barth.

On Senior Night, Barth became the first Morris tennis player, boy or girl, to reach 100 career wins when he defeated Martin Ramirez of Coal City 6-0, 6-0 to highlight a 5-0 Morris win over the Coalers.

Barth was also recently named the winner of Morris’ William R. Ferguson Award, which goes to the top senior athlete each year. Barth, who also was a standout on the Morris golf team in the fall, is believed to be the first athlete with boys tennis on his resume to win the William R. Ferguson Award.

Barth, a three-time state qualifier looking to advance for the fourth time this season, has also played at No. 1 singles throughout his entire high school career. None of his 100 varsity wins have come as a doubles player or as a No. 2 or 3 singles player.

He thrives on the competition, yet he nearly didn’t play tennis in high school.

“I played baseball in grade school at Saratoga,” Barth said. “We lost the sectional in eighth grade. If we won, we would have gone to state. But we lost and I decided I was done with team sports and went out for tennis my freshman year. If I am going to lose, I want it to be my mistake. I probably started playing tennis when I was about 8 or 9 years old, but as far as actually competing, it was high school when I started.

“I also play golf, which is just me competing against myself. Some people use, say, cross country to get their body in shape for basketball. I used golf to get mentally prepared for tennis.”

Morris coach Sara Davy is certainly happy that the baseball program’s loss was her program’s gain.

“I knew about Connor from him being in our summer tennis camps,” Davy said. “When he came out in high school, I could tell early on while we were doing drills that he was something special. He just loves to win, not only matches, but every point in every match, every drill, anything he does. He is very focused, he knows what he wants and how to go about getting it done.

“He has been a dream to have as a coach. It’s been great listening to him at changeovers and hear his mindset during the match. All of that rubs off on the rest of the team and he makes them better.”

In other matches Thursday, Morris’ Andrew Ochoa beat Coal City’s Troy Larson 6-1, 6-1, the Morris No. 1 doubles team of Hunter Lindenborn and Chase McConnell beat Aidan Meister and Dom Chellino 7-6 (7-5), 6-1, Morris’ Cole Anderson and Connor Bogard beat Tanner Shain and McKale Perino 6-1, 6-3 at No. 2 doubles and the Morris No. 3 doubles team of Grady Jensen and Jax Wiers beat Brady Noffsinger and Hayden Kennell 6-3, 4-6, 10-8.

“This was a good match for us,” Davy said. “Coal City is a very good team, and they are in our sectional, so it was good to play well today. It makes me very excited for the rest of the season.”

Although they didn’t pick up a win, Coal City coach Jeremy Unger was happy with what he saw from his team as well.

“Tonight didn’t go very well for us,” Unger said. “Morris has a very solid lineup, and we like to play them since they are in our sectional and give us an idea of what we can expect there. That first doubles match could have gone either way early, but we lost that first set in a tiebreaker and we lost the mental aspect of our game a bit after that.

“We’re excited going forward, though. We have a good season going and we have a couple matches next week and a tournament next weekend. We’ll keep working hard and getting better.”