VALLEY CITY N.D. (Submitted)- The #10 seed Hi-Liners traveled to the #7 seed Fargo South Bruins for the tennis play-in match. It was a 3-2 line-up where  three singles matches were played and two doubles matches, with players can only able to play in one or the other with the winner moving on to the EDC team tournament on Thursday.

Results:  Valley City Listed First

Valley City 2

Fargo South 3

1S Kellen Westman lost to Josh Wilkinson 6-0, 6-1

2S Colin Hoff lost to Ross Gillett 6-0, 6-0

3S Quin Kruger defeated Noah Hoss 6-2, 6-3

1D Miles Taylor/Emery Olson defeated Soloman Anderson/Caleb Gadberry 6-0, 6-2

2D Cole Haugen/Noah Tulp lost to Noah Kuistad/Henery Wuitschich 6-7(1), 6-2, 6-2

 

Head Coach Matt Neilson shared his thoughts on the tough postseason loss, and the improvements that his team made throughout the season.

“A 3-2 line-up is strategic. You need to know your team.  You need to know your opponent. You need to be able to predict what your opponent will do with their line-up. We predicted their line-up correctly and countered with a line-up that had the best potential to knock them off. The match came down to what team was better on the day and that team ended up being Fargo South.”

“From last season, our #4 moved up to our #1.  Then our #2 through #7 for this year didn’t even practice with the varsity last year as they were all JV.  We had one win on the season, but we were literally one set away from beating Wahpeton, one set away from beating South in the regular season, and we were one set away from beating South in the play-in match yesterday.”

“Our team improved this season by leaps and bounds and was competitive with no seniors, only one junior, and the rest sophomores and younger. I’m proud of our team as they persevered all year and bought into our pillars.”

Next up is the individual regional tournament in Fargo on Friday and Saturday.  Valley City will have three singles players and two doubles teams in the field. The top eight in the region in both singles and doubles qualify for the state tournament the following weekend in Grand Forks.