FORTVILLE — When the 2020 high school girls tennis season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mt. Vernon head coach Gabe Muterspaugh lost some of his patented fire.
Momentarily.
Less inferno and more of a flicker, not being on the courts with his team and assistant coach Graham McMullen last spring was difficult.
It hit Muterspaugh hard.
“I needed it. If anyone told you as a coach that you weren’t a little bit depressed, or you weren’t a little bit sad and then the anxiety of not knowing if you were fully going to have it again, it was awful,” Muterspaugh said.
“This is passion for me. This is the love that you have, not just for the game, but more so for your players and your community of Mt. Vernon.”
A 26-year coaching mainstay at Mt. Vernon, Muterspaugh’s passion was reinvigorated this past fall as sports returned and the 2020 Daily Reporter Boys Tennis Coach of the Year resumed his and his program’s winning ways.
As a group, the boys tennis team won 18 straight matches en route to retaining its stranglehold on the Hancock County team championship and finished second in the Hoosier Heritage Conference while repeating as sectional champions.
At 21-2 overall — a single-season record for wins — the Marauders boys claimed their 13th sectional team title in program history and reached the team regional finals for the first time in boys program history.
This spring, the girls team was just as prolific, leading to Muterspaugh being named the 2021 Daily Reporter Girls Tennis Coach of the Year.
“I’m very fortunate. I talk about it all the time. Graham and I have made a great partnership. To say, he and I pump each other up is an understatement. When we are out here, it’s go time, you lose all of the negative,” Muterspaugh said.
The Marauders were a ray of positivity this spring, finishing with a record of 18-4 and second in the district behind HHC champion Delta.
Mt. Vernon was runner-up in the HHC, kept its dominance in the county intact by claiming four individual county tournament match titles and the team championship yet again.
Their sectional championship was the program’s seventh straight and 15th overall.
“When we go out there, it’s us against the world. Our whole Mt. Vernon family, we talk about both the boys and the girls, they embraced it,” Muterspaugh said. “Our boys were out here beating the girls and our girls are out here beating the boys on the courts. That makes everything else easier because when you have everyone going for the same goal, it makes it work.”
The energy Muterspaugh brings to the courts mixed with McMullen’s technical eye perfectly, and it equated to an individual IHSAA sectional tournament appearance for doubles players Lexi Shelton and Ceci Bulmahn.
The duo scored Mt. Vernon’s lone point in a 4-1 loss to Fishers at the North Central team regional tournament in the semifinal round, and they advanced to the individual sectional tournament.
More importantly, Muterspaugh was back where he belonged — at his alma mater with his student-athletes.
“They’ve let me do this for 26 years, and kind of let me do my own thing,” Muterspaugh said. “The only way I could ever do something like that is with everyone behind me and the support that we’ve had from the coaches I’ve had over the years and the players. It’s what I love. That’s why I do it.”
