IOWA CITY — The Marshalltown doubles team of Caleb Rasmussen and Evan Roush showed it had the ability.

On Wednesday, the Bobcats just didn’t have the consistency.

Rasmussen and Roush suffered back-to-back losses in the Class 2A state doubles tournament at Iowa City West High School, bowing out from the double-elimination event.

“It wasn’t their best tennis of the year,” said MHS head coach James Christensen. “It’s an accomplishment for them to get there, but it just wasn’t there today. Each of them during the day showed what they’re capable of, but it just wasn’t at that level.

“If your consistency dips for a bit of time, it’s gonna be really tough. Everybody’s really good at state and if your quality drops just a little bit, it’s gonna be tough to hang in there.”

The Bobcats’ top doubles duo drew into a tough spot in the 32-team championship bracket. Third-seeded Vivek Kothari and Thomas Wang of Waukee Northwest shook off a handful of deuce points in the first game before getting in the groove for a 6-0, 6-1 victory over the Bobcat pair in the opening round.

A dramatic finish for their eventual consolation opponent sent Cedar Rapids Washington’s Leo Weldon and Bjorn White into the back side of the bracket after a come-from-behind win for Dowling Catholic’s Ian Chapman and Landon Cody, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5), (10-3).

Weldon and White took advantage of Marshalltown’s miscues, however, to help them overcome an emotional first-round defeat, and the Warriors found themselves advancing through Rasmussen and Roush with a 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) triumph.

“We needed to just do a little better job of picking our spots and playing within ourselves,” Christensen said. “A couple of points in the tiebreak, if we just place the ball and give them a chance to mess up, I think we would have seen what could have happened in the super tie-break. That’s something that our boys have done pretty well this year, honestly, we had a lot of experience there and Washington was not showing great mental fortitude that we could have put a little more pressure on them.”

At the end of the day, it was a mission accomplished for the Marshalltown program just the same.

“Going into the year we set a couple goals as a team: number one, we wanted to try and win our conference but we weren’t able to do that this year,” Christensen said. “Looking at our conference moving forward, I think we’re positioned to make a pretty good run at that again next year.

“Secondly, we wanted to advance either a team or a doubles or singles to the state meet and we were able to get that done.”

It marked the end of the career for Rasmussen, a senior, and the end of the season for the junior Roush.

“Very few people get to win their last match, their last game, regardless of the sport,” Christensen said. “For Caleb it’s a bittersweet end. Playing No. 1 in the state of Iowa, you’re going to run into some good players, and he’s taken some lumps over the last couple weeks. But he’s a great kid, he never complained, and he’s had a great career for us.

“I think Evan wanted to go play in a tournament tomorrow. He’s a pretty hungry kid and I know he’s going to do everything it takes to try and go back there next year. He just needs some more experience playing in those pressure situations. He’s got all the talent in the world, he just needs to find some ways to harness it and let that talent shine.”