VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Valley City Hi-Liners hosted Fargo Davies Thursday afternoon in boys tennis, and the Eagles defeated the Hi-Lines 6-3. Here are coach Matt Nielson’s comments:

We knew Davies was a tough, deep team and they showed it today. We had a few chances to turn the tide in a couple matches, but Davies proved too much.

At number 1 doubles, we lost the first set playing our Aussie formation. Coach Kringlie noticed that we were actually being hindered by our preferred style and flipped it. Seth and Blake then fell into rhythm against two heavy hitters and came back to win the match. In singles, Blake came back from 1-5 15-40 in the second set to win it in a tie-breaker with cramps in his leg. Blake’s fight is unsurpassed. Seth lost the first set before settling to a pattern of moving the ball around. McCormick was controlling the points when Seth hit the ball up the middle. As soon as Seth started moving the ball around the court, he started dictating the match.

We flipped the doubles up in hopes to win #1 and also to give us a shot a #3. What was unexpected was the very tight second set that Derek and Trey had at #2 doubles. The two seniors they played are great players that both can hit the ball hard with consistency and also take the net over. In the second set, we played some 2 back to get into the point and then found a way into the net and had a lead at 5-4. That was the first time they played together and they played a great match.

Casey played his first varsity doubles match with Kai at #3. After winning the first set, we went into a little lull in the second loosing 6-0. In the third, we found our game again – moving and working as a team. We crawled back to 4-5 deuce in the third, but lost that point to lose the match instead of forcing a 5-5 tie. In singles, Kai played a very tough opponent and made him work. Kai found a way to stay in points and win points in the second set tying it at 5-5. Casey dropped the first set and figured out how to approach and take the net against a good opponent. In the end, Casey forced a second set tiebreaker and tied it at 5-5 before falling 5-7.

Davies has a good potential of being the 3 seed out of the EDC and we pushed them today. I am proud of our team, each individual player, and how we played today – more so than our wins this season. We made strides today and learned on the court. Great work team!

Singles
1. Blake Triebold defeated Kareem Kamel 6-3, 7-6(2)
2. Seth Zeltinger defeated Jake McCormick 2-6, 6-4, 10-4
3. Kai Kringlie lost to James Simle-Askew 6-2, 7-5
4. Derek Bear lost to Jack Wanzek 6-3, 6-2
5. Trey Cope lost to Zander Hasbargen 6-1, 6-2
6. Casey Kruger lost to Max Ness 6-2, 7-6(5)

Doubles
1. Triebold/Zeltinger defeated Kamel/Simle-Askew 2-6, 6-4, 6-3
2. Bear/Cope lost to Wanzek/Hasbargen 6-1, 7-5
3. Kringlie/Kruger lost to McCormick/Ness 4-6, 6-0, 6-4