When it comes to the state tennis tournament, there’s not much margin of error.
Litchfield’s girls tennis team found that out last week, when despite playing solid matches, the Dragons missed a return appearance in the Class A championship match.
“I thought our kids played pretty good in all three of our matches,” Litchfield coach Matt Draeger said. “We came up a little short in one match.”
The Dragons claimed third place in the State Class A Tennis Tournament with a 7-0 win over Providence Academy Oct. 26 at Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center in Minneapolis.
Litchfield, which opened the tournament with a 5-2 win over Staples-Motley, fell into the third-place contest when it lost to defending state champion Breck 4-3 in the semifinals. Breck beat the Dragons in the state title match last season.
“Breck’s going to win matches 4-3,” Draeger said. “They put all their best players in to the four points they win.
“The first thing that has to happen is you have to win the three points they’re weaker at, and we did that,” Draeger said. “Then it came down to having to win a doubles match, and we just couldn’t get a point there.”
Litchfield’s No. 1 doubles team of Lauren Erickson and Olivia Olson gave it a run, forcing a first set tiebreaker. But Breck’s Petra Lyon and Witt Mehbod won the tiebreaker, then cruised to a 6-0 win in the second set.
“We had to play at a really high level, and I thought we played well, but not well enough to win those matches,” Draeger said. “Just like all season, our girls competed real heard and hung in the match. We have ourselves chances to pull the match out. We just couldn’t convert some big points when we needed them.”
Still, it was a much closer match than last year’s state final, when Breck rolled to a 7-0 win.
The Dragons got their points via straight-sets wins from sophomore Karlee Prahl at second singles and eighth-grader Isla Dille at third singles. Kaitlyn Palmer, meanwhile, survived a three-set test at fourth singles, 6-7 (8), 6-4, 10-3.
Litchfield rebounded well from the semifinal loss, dominating Providence Academy to claim third place. The Dragons won five of seven matches in straight sets.
In both matches that went three sets, the Dragons rallied from first-set losses to claim victory. At second singles, Prahl dropped the first set to Koralyn Horstman, a senior, but came back to win the match 4-6, 6-4, 10-2.
Litchfield’s third doubles pairing of Amelia Benson and Emma Anderson, both seniors, dropped their first set before charging back to beat the Providence Academy duo of Leightyn Ferrell and Skylar Bartz 1-6, 7-5, 10-1.
Individual tournament
Litchfield’s presence in the state individual tournament didn’t last long, as Ryanna Steinhaus and Prahl lost in the second round of the doubles competition, and Dille was eliminated in the second round of singles play.
Prahl and Steinhaus were seeded fourth in doubles and opened with a 6-2, 6-4 win over an unseeded team from Fairmont. Meeting fifth-seeded Elyse Palen and Caroline Daly of Rochester Lourdes in the second round, the Dragons duo pushed to three sets but eventually lost 5-7, 6-2, 6-3.
“It’s a real hard thing that they had to do, coming from playing singles all week in the team tournament, then having to turn around and play doubles, and play doubles against some really good teams,” Drager said. “On any given day, any of the top five seeds could win it. We just happened to draw the defending state runner-up in the second round.”
Dille beat Toryn Woelber in the first round 6-2, 6-3, fell to third-seeded Ella Sell of Pine City in the second round. But it was a match that could have gone either way. Dille won the first set before falling 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.
“Isla was in control … was playing unbelievably well,” Draeger said. “Isla opened some people’s eyes. She earned a lot of respect from a lot of people around the state.”
