West Fargo came to VC on an extremely windy day for an EDC tennis match-up.
Results (VC listed first):
VC 4
WF 5
Singles:
1. Cali Halgrimson lost to Izzi Nankivel 6-4, 6-4
2. Hope Peterson lost to Grace Faiman 6-2, 6-2
3. Rose Zeltinger lost to Olivia Soine 6-2, 6-1
4. Maisie Leick lost to Reet Goyal 7-5, 6-2
5. Breck Sufficool beat Mariah Schatz 6-1, 6-2
6. Rachel Beierle beat Katilyn Carlson 6-4, 6-4
Doubles:
1. Halgrimson/Olivia Ingstad lost to Nankivel/Faiman 6-1, 6-1
2. Peterson/Sufficool beat Soine/Goyal 6-2, 6-4
3. Leick/Zeltinger beat Schatz/Carlson 6-4, 6-1
Exhibition:
Faith Petersen won 6-2
Mikayla Nehlich lost 7-5
Drew Potratz lost 6-3
Bianca Depra lost 6-2
Amber Knutson/Potratz won 6-0
Depra/Nehlich lost 6-3
Petersen/Potratz won 6-3
Knutson/Depra won 6-2
Petersen/Knutson 6-2
Thoughts:
Today, West Fargo clipped us by one match. They did so with sportsmanship and class which made this a fun match to play, coach and watch. Great job on setting a fantastic culture to new head coach Megan Sherven, assistant coach Amy Albrecht, and senior leaders Izzy Nankivel and Grace Faiman.
We win as a team, we lose as a team. We lost five matches, which means we had five opportunities to win the overall dual. Some might think it comes down to the player on the court when it is 4-4, but it doesn’t. The whole team won four matches, the whole team lost five matches. It is just that one player is the last one playing, that is all. After the final match, our players rallied around our last player out even though we lost showing that Hi-Liner tennis is more about our process than it is about wins and losses.
Our team is taking the pillars of tennis seriously – ACES – Attitude, communication, effort and sportsmanship. The effort not only is on the court, but in their reflections of matches and thought process on how to improve as a team. Talking afterwards, we as a team realize that we are stronger at doubles than singles and we need to make singles more of a focus to get stronger in that area. We will make a concerted effort as a team to improve at our singles game.
Today was windy by North Dakota standards, but that wasn’t a factor in the outcome. Our players had a fantastic attitude with the wind and constantly figured out how to play their opponents and the wind. I’m proud of our players for how resilient they were today in the elements.
We worked doubles in practice and it showed. Maisie and Rose at three doubles put the ball away when they had the chance. Rose poached across the whole court to get to the ball and she put it where her opponents couldn’t get it.
Hope and Breck had many points where they executed Hi-Liner doubles strategy very well leading to dominating their doubles match. We faltered down the stretch when we played not to lose. After these two decided to play to win instead of not to lose, they trounced their opponents in the final game to finish off the match. To quote Yogi Berra “Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical.” You could say the the same thing about tennis. 🙂
Rachel Beierle played her first varsity match ever today and looked very good. She used her racquet prep, footwork, and topspin form to her advantage the entire day. Also, she withstood the runs of her opponent. She was up 3-0 in the first set before losing four games in a row. Rachel then came back and then won the next 3 games for finish off the first set. She also won a close second set 6-4 to earn her first varsity victory of her career. Congrats Rachel!
Next action for the Hi-Liners is Fargo North on Tuesday in Valley City at 4pm.
