Boys tennis team substate tournaments began Saturday.
At Byrnes Park in Waterloo, Aplington-Parkersburg went 2-0 to get within one win of the state tournament. The Falcons began their day with a dominant 5-0 win over Hampton-Dumont-CAL, where the top five players all won 6-0, 6-0.
In the second round against Waterloo Columbus, the Falcons won a close 5-1 dual. At #3 singles, Seth Orta was down 5-2 in set 3, but won four straight games before eventually winning a tiebreaker 7-5. He says he found the willpower to overcome illness and prevent the dual from requiring doubles.
“Me and Price were talking, my stomach was hurting, and it was the rotation into the third set,” Orta says. “And Price told me my back is against the wall. I asked him what Tate’s score was, and then I just knew I would win. So I knew we wouldn’t go to doubles. I told Price that we would not go to doubles if Tate wins.”
Tate Neymeyer at #1 singles and Gabe Jacobson at #5 singles also won in three sets. At #6 singles, Tommy Janssen avenged two prior losses to his opponent with a 6-2, 6-3 sweep. Head Coach Dave Price says Janssen’s win was a major boost.
“All five seniors faced adversity today and all five came out on top,” Price says. “And we’ve spoken about this, not only as a team, but Coach Petaros at Columbus and I both spoke that every one of these matches can go either way, and they have throughout the year. Grant Wedeking beat his kid for the third straight time, which is hard to do. Tommy Janssen was the one kid that flipped his kid that he’d never beaten before, third time he got him and he got him handily. And Tommy was the first one done and I think that got everybody going. Everybody knew that we had that match that we needed. Gabe Jacobson got down a set. Seth Orta got down a set. Tate got down a set. So those three guys had to go to the third set. And all of them came back and won. That’s all mental, that’s all them. And I couldn’t be more happy for them.”
The Falcons will play at Decorah in Wednesday’s substate final.
Interview with Orta:
Interview with Price:
In 1A Substate 2, Grundy Center opened with a 5-1 win over Iowa Falls-Alden on Waverly-Shell Rock’s courts. The Spartans won all but #3 singles to advance to the semifinal against the Go-Hawks. The Spartans fell 5-0 to Waverly-Shell Rock.
