Gazette MVP: Highland's Luke Butcher stands out on tennis court, golf course

For a golfer, Luke Butcher is a pretty darn good tennis player. An All-Gazette pick on the links in the fall, the Highland junior is now a two-time All-Gazette choice on the tennis court. Not only that, the 17-year-old has been named the 2024 Gazette MVP for boys tennis. "My No. 1 sport is probably golf, but I don't prioritize one over the other," Butcher said. "In terms of being relative to other people, I'm probably better at golf, but I don't really look at it like that. "What I like about tennis is the value of dedication. The best tennis players are the ones who spend the most time practicing and playing matches. It's fun to test yourself against a bunch of people. It's just you, so it's a challenge mentally and physically." In many respects, that makes tennis a lot like golf, but there's one major difference: How a ball is struck in tennis can alter the way the opposing player hits it, which is not true in golf, at least from a physical standpoint. In his first season as Highland's No. 1 singles player, Butcher hit it well enough to finish 18-10, counting a few doubles matches. Taking over for three-time Gazette MVP Elijah Hadler, who would have won the award four times had the COVID-19 pandemic not canceled spring sports in 2020, Butcher was second at the top singles position at the Suburban League American Conference Tournament. "Luke worked hard in the offseason and came into 2024 ready to play," Hornets coach Lisa Reynolds said. "He has great racket control, touch and spins. He constructs points well and has good patience. Luke plays amazing defense and his speed and agility keep him in the toughest points. "He is resilient both within and between matches. He may lose a point, but he puts it behind him and looks forward. If he loses a tough match, he is ready to play the next day with a positive attitude." The owner of a 4.62 grade-point average, 1560 score on the SAT, which places him in the 99th percentile, and leaning toward majoring in computer science in college, the 5-foot-8, 135-pound Butcher has a twin brother, Zach, who is 6-0, 165, and a younger brother, Josh, a Highland sophomore. "Obviously, we're not identical," he said of Zach, also an All-Gazette golfer in the fall and a 3-point sniper for the Highland basketball team. "We still share a room, so we're pretty close. Zach is the more athletic of us two. He runs faster, jumps higher and is stronger — whatever you want to look at. "It's still usually a competition between us and it comes out in golf. We both have a competitive nature where we're always trying to beat each other." Like Zach, Butcher played basketball in grade school, but it wasn't long before he realized he didn't have the ideal frame for the sport. "It didn't help that I was undersized, so I ended up quitting," he said. "I just wasn't very good. I stopped playing competitively in the fourth grade." Zach would win a game of one-and-one fairly easily, Butcher concedes, but a tennis match would be even more one-sided. "It would be O and O," said Butcher, who began taking introductory classes at Paramount Tennis Club when he was 5. "To my knowledge, I still have the record for the most consecutive rallies in those Red Ball classes," he said with a laugh. "We got to 100, so I'd like to say I started out pretty well." Soft spoken and humble, Butcher earned All-Gazette honors as a sophomore while playing second singles for the Hornets, but he knew moving up to the No. 1 spot would result in much tougher competition. "It was definitely challenging at times," he said. "You're up against the best players from other schools, so you're facing players who are just as good as you and probably better most of the time. "I tried to go match by match and not focus too much on who I was playing. It gets in your head sometimes when you're playing a really good player, so I just tried to take it one point at a time and hit the ball in." Extremely intelligent in the classroom, Butcher appeared to be very good when it came to dissecting opponents and making adjustments on the court, but he said that usually wasn't the case. "I've played matches where I would not even notice I was playing a lefty," he said. "I'm a little bit better at it now, but the biggest thing in that area was coaching. The longer you play matches, the more you realize your coaches are right and if you do what they're telling you, it's probably going to work." It worked 18 times in 28 matches, but Butcher was not happy with how his year ended. He and fellow All-Gazette pick Sawyer Sulzener, who played second singles for the Hornets in the regular season, were seeded third in doubles at the sectional tournament but dropped their first match. "It was quick," Butcher said. "We wanted to get to districts and it was over in one match, so it definitely sticks with you. "First and foremost, our goal for next season is we have to make districts. This season left a bitter taste in our mouths, so we have to come back stronger next year." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com. Follow him @RickNoland.