Century’s Lynn earns Player of the Year honors after dominant run to state title

POCATELLO — Century’s Tiden Lynn went to the state tennis meet last month thinking he had a good shot at a top-four finish.

The people around him, though, most notably his teammates and coaches, expected him to win it all.

So when he was staring down his rival, Hillcrest’s Tayson Nelson, on match point for the singles state championship, he was right, he’d hoped he’d be when the season started — and where those closest to him knew he’d be.

Lynn took the first set of the match and was serving up 5-4 in the second. He hit a forehand serve right down the middle and immediately crashed hard toward the net.

“Just to spook him,” Lynn said of aggressive charge. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to hit the ball again. And it spooked him. He missed.”

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As the ball bounded past Nelson, Lynn expressed his jubilation in the only way he knew — he took the spare ball out of his pocket and used his racquet to launch it in the air.

“It feels great, especially because I was an underdog,” Lynn said of his singles title. “It made it that much better because — I was, for sure, expecting to place, but I wasn’t expecting to come out on top.”

Perhaps Lynn, a junior, should have expected himself to be among the favorites. He entered the tournament as the no. 2 seed — with Nelson No. 1 — having finished with a consolation championship as a sophomore in 2025.

While Lynn was dealing with the pressure of his own success and facing his rival for an individual title, he was also playing with the knowledge that his outcome would determine his team’s state finish.

With a win, Lynn finished off what was a state boys team championship. A loss in the boys’ singles final would have dropped the Diamondbacks to second place.

Lynn said that his teammates were in the back of his mind before and during the match, but admitted that they stayed there for a while as he celebrated his individual success.

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After bringing his teammates into his celebration, Lynn allowed himself to come down a bit from his ultimate high. But not much.

Even when he left the Boise area and Boise Racquet Club, where the 5A state tournament was held, Lynn was still riding a wave of positive emotion. He said that he watched highlights from the tournament over and over on his cell phone during the three-hour drive home. Then, as he received congratulatory texts over the next few hours, he responded by offering to send the championship match point video to the texter.

“On the way back from state, I didn’t sleep at all,” he said. “It was exciting, talking to mom about it — she got every point on video, and I watched all of it. I watched an hour of tennis on my phone. That’s not including the (championship) match point, and I watched that match point like 50 times.”

Since, he has realized the gravity of it all even further. He is a state champion and a member of a state championship-winning team.

But he is also a piece of the wave of dominance brought to the Treasure Valley by tennis players from eastern Idaho.

“I didn’t play a single Boise kid in the quarters, semis or finals. I played all Idaho Falls kids,” Lynn said.

And while he and Nelson, from Hillcrest, played for the top prize, Idaho Falls’ Max Traynor was beating Blackfoot’s Pablo Martinez for the consolation title.

Additionally, Hillcrest’s girls won the 5A team state title, with Brinley Nelson finishing second in singles and Kaia Kessler taking the singles consolation title. The Hillcrest duo of Avrie Johnson and Kyden Hanney beat Century’s Nate Romriell and Skyler Gates in the mixed doubles championship. And Century’s team of Bel Miller and Kate Spicer capped off a 29-0 season with a doubles title game victory over the Idaho Falls team of Katie Woodhouse and Addi Westwood.

Led by Lynn, Century, Hillcrest, and an abundance of local talent, eastern Idaho 5A athletes announced loudly at state that the beasts do, in fact, come from the east.

“We get, kinda, the shaft,” Kane said of eastern Idaho tennis players. “We’re just as good as anyone — even in 6A, Highland was very competitive as well.”

Lynn, the East Idaho Sports boys tennis Player of the Year, called it “very cool” to play the same opponents he sees all year in Pocatello, Idaho Falls and eastern Idaho, at the state tournament on the line. And with many of those players returning next year, including Lynn, it could be the same story in 12 months.