CROOKSTON GIRL’S TENNIS EDGED 4-3 BY PROVIDENCE ACADEMY FOR THE STATE CLASS A CONSOLATION CHAMPIONSHIP

The Crookston Pirate Girl’s Tennis team capped off a tremendous team season that seen them defeat the #4, #7 and #10 teams in the state polls during their run during the Section 8A Tournament, that they won, and now in the Minnesota State Class A Team Tennis Championships. Crookston lost to #7 ranked St. James in a first-round match yesterday and came back with a 6-1 win over Luverne in a consolation semi-final. The win put them in the State Class A consolation championship today at the Reed-Sweatt Family Domed Tennis Center in Minneapolis. Providence Academy lost their first-round game to #2 seed Blake 4-3 yesterday and rebounded in the consolation with a 4-3 win over New London-Spicer to put them into today’s match with the Pirates. In their loss to Blake yesterday, Providence appeared to load their doubles, trying for a sweep, which they accomplished and then looked for a win amongst their singles players, which they had a fourth ranked player in the state in Annika Harberts-Ott. While Providence won all the doubles matches, Blake won all four singles matches in their 4-3 win. Providence came into today’s consolation championship with the same strategy and the Pirates used their same lineup which they used throughout the tournament. “We felt confident going into the match,” said Crookston head coach Gina Gunderson, “we knew they were a very good team, but we knew we were as well.”
It looked like both strategies were working to start the match as Providence’s number one doubles beat the Pirates Emma Gunderson and Kaylie Clauson in two sets and they ended up with another win at two doubles when Morgan Nelson and Georgia Sanders were beaten by Providence in two sets. What the Lions didn’t count on was the Pirates third doubles of Coral Brekken and Ashlyn Bailey winning in two sets at 6-2, 6-3. In the other bubble, the singles were playing and the Pirates first singles, Brekken Tull played fourth ranked Harberts-Ott and lost 6-2, 6-0 and Providence had a 3-1 lead. Crookston’s next two singles, number two Isabelle Smith and number three Addie Fee won their matches in quick time, Smith 6-1, 6-3 and Fee 6-2, 6-0 to even the match at 3-3 with the number four singles going on and was early favoring Providence Academy’s Julia Tennison who won set one 6-3 over the Pirates Paige Abrahamson for the second match in a row, Abrahamson faced being the only match left with a 3-3 score, losing to St. James yesterday in the 4-3 loss and now facing another familiar fate. When at her bleakest moment, Abrahamson, down one set and trailing 4-5 in the second set and a point away from losing, Paige came rallying back to win the next two points and win 6-4 and force a super tie-breaker, which is the first one up to 10 points. During the championship rounds, if the two players split the first two sets, a third set would be played, but in consolation, they went to the super tie-breaker! Abrahamson jumped out to a 5-3 lead and in control of quite the comeback, but Tennison struck her stride and ran off the next 7 points to win 10-5 in the tie break and gave Providence Academy the 4-3 win and consolation title. “It was an exciting match between the two squads,” said Gina Gunderson, “it’s too bad it came down to Paige again and she played a gutty match and could have very easily won. There were three other losses for us in the match, so we had other chances to put it away as well.”
Crookston finishes their season with a 17-7 dual record with Fee and Smith both going 3-0 in the three state tournament matches. Crookston will lose seven seniors, Coral Brekken, Calleigh Fanfulik, Emma Gunderson, Morgan Nelson, Isabelle Smith, Brekken Tull and Halle Winjum. “They have been an outstanding group to coach,” said first year coach Gina Gunderson, “they had a lot of talent and continued to grow as the season went along and really came on strong during the playoffs. They are going to be missed! We have a good group of juniors and sophomores that will be back to build around.”
Crookston still has two individuals that will play in the State Class A Individual Doubles Tournament starting tomorrow. Seniors, Emma Gunderson and Isabelle Smith will play at 10:00 AM in a first round match against a talented pair from Rochester Lourdes,  the team state champions. Crookston’s pair will then play a second round match about 2:00 PM. You have to win your second match to stay alive for the finals on Thursday.

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