The Spirit Lake-Okoboji Boys Tennis team bounced back from a loss to LeMars, on Monday, and beat Storm Lake, 5-4, yesterday. Brandon Stoll, Andrew Ites, and Michael O’Brien all got singles wins, for the Indians. Stoll and Schmitz, and O’Brien and Ryley Smith were doubles winners.
Comments from Coach Dan Taylor:
“Just as both Cherokee and LeMars showed quite a bit of improvement since our first meeting of the season, Storm Lake played some excellent tennis, and the meet was extremely close compared to our previous 7-2 victory. Brandon and Andrew played outstanding singles and came away with decisive victories out of the gate. Trystan, CJ and Tyler all played pretty well, as did their opponents. All 3 matches were very close – they had all kinds of twists, turns and momentum shifts, and two of the three came down to decisive match tiebreaks. After dropping those three singles matches, Michael O’Brien got us a huge win at #6, so that we just needed 2 of the 3 doubles victories to win the meet. And we did just that, winning at #2 and #3 doubles. Andrew and Trystan played a very good team from Storm Lake tough once again, but Anderson and Luedtke just seemed to come up with the shots when they needed them in pivotal moments. Brandon and Tyler played very well, especially in the 2nd set, and O’Brien and Smith showed a great deal of perseverance and character as they got down big in both sets, but were able to dig themselves out of holes to come back and win both sets and clinch the meet. This was a big win for the team, ending our regular season with an 8-3 record, earning us 2nd place in the Lakes Conference behind Spencer, and most importantly, getting momentum back in our direction going into districts on Thursday.”
In Monday’s loss to LeMars, Stoll, Ites, Wiedow, and Kent all picked up singles wins.
Spirit Lake-Okoboji is now 8-3, heading into Districts on Thursday. They finished their regular season second, in the Lakes Conference, behind Spencer.
Dan Taylor’s Comments:
“This was an extremely close meet. And in the beginning things were going very well for us. We won the first 4 singles matches, two of which came down to deciding tiebreakers in place of the 3rd set. Tyler lost a close 2nd set in which he had a couple set points, and Michael’s opponent just played a great match, but that still put us at 4-2, just needing one of the 3 doubles wins to clinch the meet. We got off to a slow start in doubles, with all of our teams dropping the first set. LeMars was on fire, and we were not playing our best. Our top 2 teams turned things around very well to win the 2nd sets and send the matches to deciding tiebreakers. And both tiebreaks were extremely close, but we just couldn’t pull them out. The #1 doubles tiebreak was neck and neck, and LeMars just happened to get two in a row at the end. And our #2 team had 4 match points, I believe, but just couldn’t win that last one, so LeMars was able to sweep the doubles and win the meet. It was a surprising result, as we beat LeMars 8-1 the first time we played, and we won all three doubles matches that day quite handily. But they played extremely well today, and we were just a little off at crucial times. The 3 days leading up to this meet were busy for the guys, including a large music contest and prom, so that may have played a factor in the patches during the doubles matches where they weren’t playing up to their usual level. But they did play pretty well in the singles matches.”
In girls action, Spirit Lake Okoboji beat Storm Lake 8-1 and will be at the Region 1 Team Tennis Tournament Saturday in Spencer at 9 AM against Spencer
