Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm High School’s Lana Braun returns a serve during a home meet with St. Peter on Monday at NUHS.

NEW ULM — While the New Ulm High School girls tennis team has hit a rough patch recently, progress is still being made.

The Eagles are coming off a pair of shutout losses over the weekend to Monticello and Hutchinson and suffered another 7-0 shutout loss to St. Peter on Monday in Big South Conference action.

Despite the recent losses, New Ulm head coach Pete Engeldinger still sees development from his quad.

“It’s a deal where you can’t look at how the results are going, we’ve got to look at where we, as a team, are moving, and there’s a lot of upward movement,” Engeldinger said. “There’s a lot of tennis IQ development going on. The girls are learning how to hit shots to open areas.

“I don’t think they’re too bummed out about losing. And we do have a three-tier deal where you win a meet — one. Two, you win a couple matches within a meet, and at the third level, you play competitively within each of those matches, and we’re getting there.”

At No. 1 singles on Monday, Annika Southworth defeated Lydia Ling 6-1, 6-1, while Amelia Hildebrandt topped Calyn Glaser 6-1, 6-0 at No. 2 singles.

“Lydia at 1, she played a really good player,” Engeldinger said. “So Lydia likes to come up to the net, and when you’re coming up to the net, which we encourage, you’ve got an approach shot and that approach shot has to be deep and usually high and to the back end. And any time she hit one to her [opponent’s] forehand that was a little short, she watched it go by.

“And Calyn at 2 singles, her serve is really coming around, she’s getting into the ace category, so she’s stepping up. She’s got that sweet softball arm and all that, that’s fun to see.”

At No. 3 singles, Zetta Haugen defeated Lana Braun 6-3, 6-1, while Kylie Southworth defeated Joci Pettersen 6-0, 6-3 at No. 4 singles.

“Lana’s been [serving] well, too,” Engeldinger said. “Her placement, putting balls to open spots and learning some strategy and learning how to see a little further ahead, a couple shot downs, because a lot of times you see it and you want to rip away on it, but it’s not quite there. You need to push them back a little further and than that next one that comes back you can put away, so she’s getting there.

“And Joci’s playing great at 4 singles. She’s our youngest player out there, she’s the youngest varsity player, everyone else is seniors with a couple juniors. So Joci has come a long way.”

At No. 1 doubles, Rhyan Holmgren and Madison Kamm defeated Katie Wilker and Evelyn Sellner, while Macy Weller and Raina Roemhildt defeated Kate Frauenholtz and Karson Schmid 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2 doubles. At No. 3 doubles, Kali Erickson and Nora Whipps topped Emily Pearson and Claire Brown 6-1, 6-0.

New Ulm travels to Fairmont for a Big South Conference matchup on Thursday.