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MHS boys tennis falls to No. 8 Ames in regular-season finale

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Marshalltown junior Jack Gruening makes a forehanded return on the ball during the Bobcats’ 8-3 loss to Ames on Thursday at the MHS Tennis Courts in Marshalltown. Gruening and Jacob Eberle combined for one of the three wins at No. 3 doubles.

Only one thing stood between the Marshalltown boys tennis team and finishing the regular season on a nine-meet winning streak, and that was Class 2A No. 8 Ames.

The Little Cyclones brought their best game when the two teams clashed on Thursday on the MHS courts, and while the Bobcats played well it wasn’t enough to get the win as they fell, 8-3.

Marshalltown head boys tennis coach James Christensen said it wasn’t necessarily his team’s fault they lost.

“A lot of credit goes to Ames, they outplayed us today,” he said. “We had a couple of guys that had to play above themselves to get a win and we had a couple of people get that done.”

One of those Bobcats to rise to the occasion was Luke Smith, who picked up the only singles victory in the No. 2 spot with a 6-3, 7-6, win over Nate Withers.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Marshalltown sophomore Nic Price returns a ball at the net during the Bobcats’ 8-3 loss to Ames in their season finale on Thursday in Marshalltown.

“Nate Withers is a good opponent, he’s won a lot of good matches this year, so for Luke to get that done while playing really a variety of tennis in the match speaks well about his competitiveness and his stubbornness to not let the win escape him,” Christensen said.

The other two wins came on the doubles side, with the No. 3 pairing of Jack Gruening and Jacob Eberle defeating Caleb Kong and Rob Arbuckle, 6-7, 7-6, (10-5), and the No. 5 grouping of Ethan Benscoter and Nic Price pulling off a 6-4, 5-7, (10-6) win over Taylor Xu and Derek Peng.

Gruening and Eberle both struggled in their singles matches, with Gruening falling 6-0, 6-1, and Eberle losing 6-0, 6-0, but Christensen said the duo did a marvelous job of having a short memory.

“I can’t say enough about Gruening and Eberle, that was a heck of a performance,” Christensen said. “They have honestly been struggling a little bit in their doubles play and they took big losses in singles today, but they didn’t blink. They lost a set tiebreak in the first, jumped right back on and won the second set tiebreak, and then they really dominated the super tiebreaker. They played their best doubles tennis of the year, and it’s a great time to do it.”

Price and Benscoter had a big lead early in the second set against Xu and Peng but lost five-straight games to find themselves in a precarious position.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“They were up 5-2, then dropped down to 5-6. I went out there and talked to them, really just told them to relax,” Christensen said. “They were so caught up in getting the win that I think they just kind of lost sight of what was going on, but they reset themselves mentally. They ended up dropping the set to go into the super tiebreaker, but really they were in control of the super throughout and played just like they did in the first set.”

There were also a few Bobcats who fought well but eventually lost. Despite taking a 6-0, 6-0, loss at No. 1 singles, Christensen said senior Luke McKibben actually played a great match, he just ran up against one of the best tennis players in the state in the undefeated and defending 2A state champion Timmy Ellis.

Kevin Strand at No. 4 singles had two incredibly close sets against Kong, but the ball didn’t bounce his direction on a few points and the MHS freshman ended up losing, 7-6, 7-5.

“Kevin Strand’s match was hanging on a thread the whole time,” Christensen said. “Kong was able to come up with a couple of big points that Kevin wasn’t, and that’s a learning experience for some of our more inexperienced guys. Every point counts, and in the future we’re going to get some more of these matches.”

It was a bittersweet end to the regular season for the Bobcat boys, who turned around from a 1-2 start to the year to finish at 9-3, just one win shy of their goal of 10 wins. Christensen said the team isn’t disappointed about taking a loss to the Little Cyclones, mainly because they know the real goal of qualifying for the state tournament is just on the horizon.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

Even with McKibben and Smith, the state-qualifying doubles team from a year ago, losing a 6-1, 6-2, match to Ellis and Withers, Christensen said the boys should be able to take a lot from the experience.

“This shows guys like Luke and Luke up top just exactly what the top of the doubles lineup looks like,” he said. “Timmy and Nate are a heck of a team, I’m not quite sure of their record but they haven’t lost much, if any. Our guys played well, they took a couple of games off of them and had a few others in their grasps, but they hit shots that win against 95 percent of doubles teams in the state and Timmy really is just able to cover so much of the court and do so much with balls that normal people can’t even touch, that it really makes the margin of error almost nil for the guys.”

Marshalltown will head to Cedar Rapids Prairie on Wednesday for its district meet, starting at roughly 9 a.m.

Ames 8, Marshalltown 3

At Marshalltown

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

Singles

Timmy Ellis (A) def. Luke McKibben, 6-0, 6-0

Luke Smith (MHS) def. Nate Withers, 6-3, 7-6

David Kim (A) def. Jack Gruening, 6-0, 6-1

Caleb Kong (A) def. Kevin Strand, 7-6, 7-5

Nate Wilson (A) def. Jacob Smith, 6-1, 6-2

Rob Arbuckle (A) def. Jacob Eberle, 6-0, 6-0

Doubles

Ellis and Withers (A) def. McKibben and L. Smith, 6-1, 6-1

Kim and Wilson (A) def. J. Smith and Strand, 6-3, 6-0

Gruening and Eberle (MHS) def. Kong and Arbuckle, 6-7, 7-6, (10-5)

Nao Furukawa and Scott Junck (A) def. Colin Schmit and John Loney, 7-6, 6-1

Ethan Benscoter and Nic Price (MHS) def. Taylor Xu and Derek Peng, 6-4, 5-7, (10-6)

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