After capturing the team championship on Thursday, the Valley City Hi-Liner tennis team looked to pull off a potential sweep, with a pair of teams playing doubles and Skye Neilson playing in the singles tournament.
Unfortunately for the Georgia Zaun and Kailee Neilson team, they were eliminated from the tournament on Friday after dropping back-to-back games in the quarterfinals and the consolation quarterfinals. Abby Martineck and Breck Sufficool made it unscathed through day one, notching a pair of straight-sets victories. Day two, however, would see the defending state champions fall in the semi-finals to eventual winners McPherson & Seversen from Bismarck Legacy, the number one seed out of the west. The Valley City seniors would finish the tournament in 4th place after dropping the third-place match to the Dickinson team of Bradley & Klitzke.
After winning her first match on day one, Skye Neilson would run into a familiar foe in Sheyenne’s Sarea Gu, the top-seeded player in the east. The tournament favorite in Gu would take a convincing straight-sets win, sending Neilson to the consolation bracket. Neilson would rattle off a pair of consolation bracket wins, sending her to the 5th place match against Grand Forks Central senior Madi Stauss. Although Neilson could not cap off her stellar season with a win over Stauss, it was still an excellent season for the young 8th grader whose individual efforts helped clinch both the EDC and the State Championships for Valley City.