GIrls Tennis: Tigers fall in section finals

After beating Cannon Falls 4-3 in the Section 1A semifinals, the No. 2-seeded Lake City girls tennis team faced a daunting task against top-seeded Rochester Lourdes, which had won the section for 16 consecutive years.

Like they have done for close to two decades, the Eagles punched their ticket to state with a 5-2 victory over the Tigers in the section finals Tuesday in Owatonna.

While Lake City missed out on state, head coach Dave Toole was very complementary on how his team performed throughout the season.

“We had a great year. I’m very, very happy,” Toole said. “It was the first time we brought hardware home in my reign. It’s the first time we had a second-place finish in a lot of years. … We reached a plateau with 15 victories.”

Getting Lake City’s wins against Lourdes were the No. 2 team of Katie Coyle and BraedenMcElmury, and the No. 3 duo of Erica Hubbard and Emily Moechnig. Colye and McElmury defeated Grace Gorman and Elizabeth Hart 5-7, 7-5, (10-8), and Moechnig and Hubbard also won in three sets against Shannon Pederson and Ellen Gorman 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

In their semifinals match against the No. 3-seeded Bombers, the doubles stood out for the Tigers as they swept all three matches.

Cannon Falls managed to keep the match tight with singles wins from McKenna Bauer, Tayler Banitt and Grace Rutter.

It was in No. 1 singles that Lake City was able to secure its victory, with Amy Orthaus defeating Samantha Modrak 6-2, 6-2. All match long, Toole said, Orthaus and Modrak went shot-for-shot with each other before Orthaus clinched the match.

“We put a lot of weight on Amy,” Toole said. “At one point, Amy hit the ball back 39 times in one point. We wanted the girls to be able to get to eight returns, and she counted up to 39.”

With Lourdes clinching its 17th straight trip to state, the Section 1A individual tournament begins Friday in Rochester.

Tags: girls tennis, lake city, cannon falls, sports, prep