Pirate Girls Tennis Opens Season With A Win and 2 Losses

The Crookston Pirate Girls Tennis team had four practices under their belt and play three matches today at the Park Rapids north vs south challenge.  The Pirates beat Aitkin 6-1, lost to Pine City 5-2 and lost to Mound Westonka 6-1.  

Hannah Lindemoen eyes down the ball on a return in her first match

CROOKSTON VS AITKIN
Crookston started the season with a 6-1 victory over the Aitkin Gobblers.  The Pirates were missing three of their players for various reasons and the absence of some of the veterans didn’t seem to phase them as they won three of their matches in three sets.  “It was a good performance.  We didn’t know what to expect with our girls and we didn’t know what to expect from Aitkin,” said Pirate Coach Mike Geffre. “We both lost a lot of key players to graduation and it proved to be a competitive match. The girls battled in the match and I thought our kids did a good job of finishing the match and nice to start the season with a win.”
Crookston lost their all-time leader in career victories with the graduation of Ally Tiedemann.  Ally played first singles for over four seasons, but there was still a Tiedemann playing first singles in the Aitkin match.  Catherine Tiedemann, a sophomore and Ally’s sister, took over the top spot and won her match in three sets.  “She is a very good player and we will use her and Hayden Winjum at first singles most of the time,” said Coach Geffre. “Between her brother Bobby, Ally and now Catherine, there has been a Tiedemann at the first singles spot for a long time.  They are good tennis players and competitors and we are looking forward to our top returners (Tiedemann, Hayden Winjum and Emma Borowicz) to lead us and have a great season.”

Emma Borowicz with a forehand return in the Aitkin match

CROOKSTON VS PINE CITY
The second match of the season proved to be tougher for the Pirates in a 5-2 loss to Pine City.   Crookston’s two wins came at first doubles with Catherine Tiedemann and Emma Borowicz picking up a hard-fought three-set (7-6 (7-3), 5-7, 10-4 victory and the third doubles team of Eden Haller and Halle Winjum won 7-6 (7-5), 7-5 for the two victories.
The second doubles team of Hannah Lindemoen and Elysa Christensen lost a competitive three-set match with an 11-9 super tiebreaker loss.  Pine City swept the rest of the matches by 6-2, 6-2 scores.  “We had some competitive matches and we were basically one shot away from a 4-3 loss,” said Coach Geffre. “In singles, they were very good and they put a lot of balls on the court and their first singles player made it to state last year.  With the team, we brought down today and how young we are, it is pretty impressive.”
Pine City beat Thief River Falls earlier in the day.

Halle Winjum eyes down the ball on a return in her first varsity match

CROOKSTON VS MOUND WESTONKA
Crookston ran into another tough opponent in their third match of the day and lost to Mound Westonka, Coach Geffre’s alma mater.
The only close match in the first four came at fourth singles.  Emma Gunderson and Isabel Smith, two seventh graders, lost a hard-fought match by a 7-5, 7-5 score.  “They played pretty good today,” said Geffre talking about the two seventh graders. “They didn’t look intimidated in their first varsity matches and said they could have won their match, so they had a pretty competitive day.”  The fourth doubles result didn’t count towards the team score, but the score counted towards their varsity record.
There was a break a half hour or more between the fourth and fifth match because Mound Westonka had to come from other courts that were running behind.  Crookston had their only win with an impressive performance from the first doubles team of Emma Borowicz and Hyden Winjum.  The Pirate duo won their match 6-3, 6-2.  “They played really well,” said Coach Geffre. “The Mound Westonka coach was saying our girls were getting to everything and they were super athletic.”

Crookston went 1-2 on the day and Coach Geffre was happy with his teams play.  “We were short three players at the start of the day and four girls short for the last match and it will be nice to have our full team in our next match,” said Geffre. “Our junior high girls probably haven’t played three matches in a day and most of them had some success, which was nice to see.  We have some work to do and I look forward to seeing what we can do as the season goes along.”