WAHPETON, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Valley City Hi-Liners Boys tennis team improved to 2-0 with a 9-0 win over Wahpeton Thursday in Wahpeton.

Here are the results and Coach Nielson’s comments

Valley City Wahpeton Score
#1 Singles Blake Triebold over Jared Bartels 6-0, 6-2
#2 Singles Collin White over Jacob Bartels 7-5, 6-4
#3 Singles Austin Rogelstad over David Comings 6-2, 6-4
#4 Singles Bennett Rogelstad over Aaron Bohn 6-2, 6-2
#5 Singles Derek Bear over Douglas Burvee 6-3, 6-4
#6 Singles Seth Zeltinger over Andrew Withuski 6-0, 6-3
#1 Doubles Triebold/A.Rogelstad over Bartels/Bartels 6-4, 6-4
#2 Doubles White /B.Rogelstad over Comings/Withuski 6-0, 6-2
#3 Doubles Zeltinger/Kai Kringlie over Bohn/Burvee 6-1, 6-4
JV Results:
Casey Kruger/Ethan Bear won 6-1
Alex Rogelstad/Max Magnuson won 6-3
Jayden Johnson/Yu Zheng won 6-3
Gavin Swenson/Gabriel Little Dog won 6-0
Miles Taylor/Emmett Olson won 6-0
Shaun Wieser/Jacob Kruger won 6-4
Magnuson/Kruger won 6-0
Little Dog/Taylor won 6-1
E.Bear/Johnson won 6-0
Al.Rogelstad/Swenson won 6-1
Zheng/Olson won 6-2
Thoughts:
The hi-liners played some more good tennis in our second match of the year. We won every match, varsity and JV, without dropping a single set.

Tennis is such a mental game. Today, we played some opponents whose games were unorthodox. The wind swirled and was a factor. The ’tennis gods’ didn’t like us at times. We played below expectations at times. All of these factors and more go into the mental side of tennis. How can we persevere through all of this and just play tennis? How do we learn on the court how to play unorthodox opponents and the wind? How do we let the luck factor in tennis go and move on to the next point? How can we play each point with the utmost confidence? This team is talented, they work hard, and they care. What this team accomplishes will be directly related to how much our mental game improves throughout the course of this season.

Today, Collin fell into a 5-2 hole in the first set. He figured it out and won the next five games to take the set and then the match. Blake’s mental game was off in the first set of doubles, but came around and found a way to win. Austin must have made the ’tennis gods’ upset, because I saw about six points in a ten minute stretch that he lost by bad luck. He still found a way to overcome and finish the match. Derek had a very tight second set where his opponent upped his game dramatically. Derek maintained his cool and presence to continue to fight to finish his match. Kai won his first varsity EDC dual match of his career playing doubles with Seth. He returned well and improved throughout the match with his net presence. Seth won his first varsity EDC dual singles match of his career. He fell into an 0-3 hole in the second set to then rattle off six straight games to win the set. Bennett was solid throughout the day dropping a total of six games in four sets. As strong as we are mentally as proved by our first two matches, we still have a lot to grow mentally if we are going to make some real noise this year in North Dakota boys tennis.

I am proud of the team and each player for the strides they are making with their game, strategy, and mentally. Keep hungry to improve! Next action is Tuesday at Jamestown at 4:15pm.