Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Dan Brownfield prepares to return a shot during a Big South Conference boys tennis meet against Fairmont Tuesday at New Ulm High School.

By Ari Selvey

aselvey@nujournal.com

NEW ULM — The Big South Conference boys tennis meet between New Ulm and Fairmont on Tuesday came down to the final match at No. 1 doubles, but it was Fairmont that came away with the close win after Dominic Lund-May and Wylee Frederiksen took the match 6-1, 7-6 (4) over New Ulm’s Nicolas Del Castillo Diez and Eli Dorschner to win 4-3.

Del Castillo Diez and Dorschner came back in the second set to tie it 6-6 after dropping the first set, but Lund May and Frederiksen were able to win the tiebreaker to earn the win for the Cardinals.

“A little bit of a heartbreaker on that one,” New Ulm head coach Pete Engeldinger said. “I know our guys on that 1 spot are going to be kind of bummed just because they know they could have played better in that first set, it just took them too long to get warmed up. But overall a great meet. They have those 1 and 2 singles that look good, but then our 3 and 4 singles are rocking it.”

Engeldinger said it was good to have the match come down to some of the top players on the team.

“You kind of like it that way,” he said. “When the meet is decided at 3-3 by your No. 1 doubles or No. 1 singles. Not putting that burden on 3 doubles or something like that.”

New Ulm got the first two points of the match after Dan Brownfield at No. 3 singles won 6-0, 6-0 over Zachary Ashland and Isaac Dittmer won at No. 4 singles over Leander Nelson 6-1, 6-0 to start out the day. Fairmont came back with a win at No. 1 singles as Anthony Stegge defeated Charlie Weidman 6-1, 6-4, and a win at No. 3 doubles, with Lillian Ortega and Jonah Vetter coming out on top 6-2, 6-1 over Ben Groebner and Britton Beran. New Ulm’s Wyatt Feucht and Thomas Lehne got a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 2 doubles over Simone Castro and Oliver Thedens, but Fairmont’s Tyler Slama won 6-1, 0-6, 6-1 over New Ulm’s Ian Schotzko at No. 2 singles in the only three-set match of the meet.

“That 2 doubles pulloff was really nice,” Engeldinger said. “And we’re working on getting our 3 on doubles figured out. We had a different crew playing today, and they struggled a little bit with chemistry and getting used to — and nobody on that third spot has played varsity yet. They didn’t play last year. So we’ll figure that out and get that going. But I really like how our 3 and 4 singles went. And Ian Schotzko, he came up with a 6-0 second set against a really nice player at 2 singles.”

New Ulm has had two close losses early in the season after dropping a tight match against Mankato West on April 3 and are looking for a way to come away with the tight matches.

“We had West, where we had three that went three sets,” Engeldinger said. “We pulled out one and ended up losing 5-2 on that. But somehow this one kind of stings a little more. It’s conference and we know we’ve got a nice team. But I think we were a little cold. We weren’t making out shots, just like in hoops, that can happen. At least on the doubles front.”

New Ulm travels to Waconia on Friday.