A day full of ground strokes, volleys, smashes, and Eagles cheering on from afar, the NUHS Boys Tennis team had an exceptional outing at this year’s Individual Sections tournament.
Charlie Weidman, an NUHS senior with much experience in this tournament, had one strategy for the day. “My mindset was to be positive,” Weidman said, “just get out there and have fun.”
Fun is what Friday’s Individual Section tournament was, with many Eagle wins for the day. After MVL senior Isaac Dittmer lost his opening-round match against Prior Lake’s Sam Williams 6-2, 6-0, the Eagles picked up victories in singles and doubles action. Even some action with familiar faces.
“The first two guys from Shakopee we have played before,” NUHS senior Daniel Brownfield said. “This really helped because we were familiar with their play style.” Charlie and Daniel went on to win that first match 6-2, 6-1.
On the singles front, MVL freshman Griffin Lehne was serving it up for the Eagles. Griffin won his first match with ease, topping New Prague’s Max Streefland 6-3, 6-1. Griffin was very excited to move on to the next round.
In Griffin’s second match, he played Shakopee’s Arnav Anandkumar. In the first set, Griffin faced a little more of a challenge than his previous set, but he was able to keep it up, winning 6-4. In his second set, Griffin rallied his way to victory, winning 6-1.
Back to the doubles front with Charlie and Daniel, they played New Prague’s Kane Johnson and Daniel Little. They showed signs of struggle in the first set, but they rallied back and won the match 6-4, 6-1.
“We had a rough first couple of games,” Brownfield said, “but we were able to stay positive and keep pushing forward.”
Griffin, on the other hand, matched up against Prior Lake’s Jack Williams, who was the one seed and got a first-round bye. Griffin put up as good a fight as he could, losing 6-1, 6-0, but was still happy with how the tournament went.
Going into Wiedman and Brownfields’ third match against Prior Lake’s Tarun Gopi and August Adams, where the duo developed a slightly more specific strategy: “We’ve got to play well at the net,” Brownfield and Weidman said. However, they ran into some faults as they would lose the match 6-3, 6-3. Not the ending of the season they were hoping for, but it was a great season for them.
“This is not the end of tennis for me,” Brownfield said, “I am attending the University of Minnesota and will definitely be playing some form of tennis.” Charlie Weidman is attending the University of Wisconsin and is also not done with tennis and is very “Positive” about his future in tennis.
