The Aplington-Parkersburg boys tennis team placed second at Tuesday’s North Iowa Cedar League Tournament, finishing four points behind Waterloo Columbus for the team title. Grundy Center was third and South Hardin was sixth. Click here for full results. The meet started at Byrnes Park in Waterloo, where all singles matches were played. Shortly after the start of doubles play, the tournament was moved indoors to the Black Hawk Tennis Club due to rain.
AP Head Coach Dave Price says second place was not the goal.
“As a team as a whole, we’re disappointed,” Price says. “We got to give credit to Columbus. We beat them in a meet a week and a half ago. They took four matches and flipped them. And so that lets us know that mentally, we’ve got to get a little tougher. And when they’re close matches, we’ve got to figure out a way to finish it. That’s my fault as a coach because the kids give great effort. But team-wise, second place was not the goal. But the credit goes to Columbus there.”
Interview with Price:
The Falcons had three conference champions. Grant Wedeking went 5-0 to clinch the #2 singles title for the second straight year.
“Got myself ready in the first three,” Wedeking says. “Second one was a little bit of a struggle because of the guy’s play type. But we went into the fourth match versus Elias Cakerice from Grundy Center. We battled for quite a bit, but in the end I came out in that one 7-4, so that was a good one. And then I was expecting my toughest one to be my last one versus Underwood from Columbus because we went, I believe, 6-3, 6-4 in the regular season. We had the first three games all go to deuce, really good tennis, and I won all three to go up 3-0. But after that, he wasn’t himself, he cramped up, so it ended up being kind of a 10-1 blowout. So probably would have been and should have been a lot closer than that. But either way, nice to get the win. So hopefully we can play again sometime down the road and compete better.”
Gabe Jacobson was the champion at #5 singles with a 4-0 day.
“I ended up beating a tough Columbus kid at five,” Jacobson says. “I think it was 9-2. And then I had the break, and then I got some food in me, re-energized, and finished the last one out by winning the conference. And we moved into doubles and warmed up with a few other kids, beat them. Not really hard competition at all, but it is what it is. And then we ended up winning conference for doubles, too.”
Jacobson and Tate Neymeyer went 5-0 at #2 doubles to claim that position’s conference title.
Interview with AP’s conference champions:
The Falcons had runner-up finishes by Seth Orta at #3 singles, Keegan Bolhuis at #4 singles, Tommy Janssen at #6 singles, Wedeking/Orta at #1 doubles and Bolhuis/Janssen at #3 doubles.
Grundy Center had one runner-up finish. Tanner Laube placed second at #1 singles. South Hardin’s best finish was fifth place.
