Dylan Preator is a state champion.

The PHS junior won the No. 2 singles title when the Panther and Lady Panther Tennis teams competed in the Wyoming State Tennis tournament September 20-22 in Gillette.

Both squads earned sixth-place finishes.

Preator met the No. 1 seed only in his second round, but prevailed over him winning in three sets. He then played the Campbell County athlete and won, securing him a spot in the championship match.

Preator played a tough opponent from Cheyenne Central in his championship match ultimately playing three sets 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.

“I came into the third set thinking that if I didn’t finish then I wouldn’t be able to win the match, so I just tried to kick it into another gear and finish it right there,” Preator said..

Gillette used three locations to host the tournament, one indoors and the other two outside at Campbell County High School and the new Thunder Basin High School. The indoor location was used constantly but the outdoor locations were prey to the weather, with three rain delays on Thursday alone.

“Weather is the great equalizer; it makes unbeatable players beatable and average players competitive, so I don’t know that it helped us or hurt us either way but I think it changed the way that we played,” Coach Mr. Brandon Preator said. “It’s hard to get warmed up and stay warmed up when you’re on the courts, off the courts and on the courts again so I definitely think it effected play, but for everybody.”

Although the team experienced ups and downs with the rain delays, they still had a successful weekend.

The Panthers showed they were tough opponents also, each winning a game and keeping themselves in the bracket.

Junior Jesse Brown, who played the No. 1 singles spot, faced quite a few solid opponents, but he held in tight and played in the semi-final constellation championship match, resulting in a loss to Jackson.

The boys No. 1 doubles team made of juniors Grant Dillivan and Aidan Jacobsen and the No. 2 doubles team of Jay Cox and Aidan Hunt both went 2-2.

Logan Brown and Aiden Chandler who make up the No. 3 boys double team had strong opponents, finishing 1-2.

After placing third at regionals, the Lady Panther team secured a sixth place spot out of 17 total teams.

The Panthers joined them with a sixth-place finish due to their successful weekend. Among the Lady Panthers placing were third doubles team Hailee Paul and Sami Cole who earned a fourth place spot and second singles player Sierra Sanders, who also finished fourth.

“It’s really cool,” sophomore Sami Cole said. “I wasn’t expecting to place but me and Hailee work good together, so I think it was really good. We had really good momentum so once we started getting excited then we started playing really well and communication is good too.”

Other Lady Panthers performed well also, each winning at least one game, and the second doubles team Ashley Dunkerley and Sophe Morrow playing all the way into the semi final constellation championship match, ultimately falling behind their tough Cody opponents

No. 1 singles player Elise North and the No. 1 doubles team of Shayla Shoopman and Sloane Asay put up fights and ended their weekend both with finishes of 1-2.

Overall the Panthers had a very successful weekend at the state tournament playing 3A and 4A schools.

“Tennis is a weird thing; any given day you can come out and play your best tennis or your worst tennis and anybody can beat anybody and I just knew that if we played our best tennis, we would do really, really well,” Coach Preator said. “I don’t know that we played our best tennis, but we played really good tennis and we performed really well.”