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Pettersen helps Eagles advance to 2AA playoffs

Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Joci Petterson returns a ball during a Section 2AA girls tennis play-in meet against Worthington at No. 2 singles Monday at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — The Section 2AA girls tennis tournament play-in game between New Ulm and Worthington came down to the final match, a No. 2 singles battle between New Ulm’s Jocelyn Pettersen and Worthington’s Emma Heitbrink.

Pettersen came through for New Ulm’ getting a 6-3, 7-6 (5) win to seal the 4-3 victory for New Ulm.

“I was definitely really nervous,” Pettersen said. “I haven’t won many matches yet this season. This was really nice and I’m very proud, and proud of my teammates for the ones who did win and proud of the ones who loss. I was very anxious, but it was fun. I liked it.”

Pettersen and the rest of the tennis players in the match had to deal with a strong wind sweeping down the courts throughout the meet and had to adjust accordingly.

“It definitely made it harder,” Pettersen said. “It made it harder to figure out her serve. They were longer, shorter at times. Being able to figure out how I was hitting and how hard I was hitting depending how hard the wind was going. It did mess it up a little bit, but overall I think it went pretty good.”

Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Karlee Prahl returns a shot during a Section 2AA girls tennis play-in meet against Worthington at No. 1 singles Monday at New Ulm High School. Prahl cruised to a win in her match 6-0, 6-0.

Karlee Prahl was the first to finish up her match for New Ulm, coming away with a 6-0, 6-0 win over Hannah McNab at No. 1 singles. Carmen Schotzko defeated Kah Blu Moo 6-3, 6-0 at No. 3 singles, and Everly Batt and Kaylee Evens downed Eleanor Teerink and Makayla Phouangphet 6-1, 6-1 at No. 2 doubles to round out New Ulm’s wins.

At No. 4 singles, Worthington’s Lily Brown defeated Natalie Fischer 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, while Sadie Nickel and Chloe Martinez of Worthington defeated Aubrey Demarais and Lillian Kral 6-3, 6-2 at No. 1 doubles. Worthington’s Ashley Esparza and Tiana Garcia defeated Brielle Evans and Natalie Schwartz at No. 3 doubles.

“With the weather and all that, it definitely changed things up,” New Ulm head coach Pete Engeldinger said. “We had played [Worthington] earlier [in the year] and sort of won handedly. And Worthington’s always fun, we always match up together.”

New Ulm now travels to Prior Lake, the eighth-ranked team in Class AA girls tennis, on Tuesday for playoff action.

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