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New Ulm doubles triple trouble

Eagles earn 1st win as duos sweep

5 min read

NEW ULM -- For a team that has had questions regarding its doubles lineups this season, Thursday's doubles teams for the New Ulm Eagles answered a lot of those questions with grit and success.

In a matchup between two teams eager to earn a win nearing the midway point of the girls tennis season, the Eagles swept doubles competition to help take down the Marshall Tigers 5-2 in a Big South Conference meet at New Ulm High School.

The now 1-7 Eagles have been trying to find their footing yet this season and have worked on finding pairings that work well in doubles action. Thursday's meet against a team facing similar early tests like the Tigers was a good chance for the Eagles to figure things out and gain some confidence, something they did in large part due to their doubles teams setting the tone.

At No. 1 doubles, Maggie Joyce, who started the year at No. 4 singles, paired with Brielle Evans to earn a 6-1, 6-4 win over Harlow Ogen and Raya Goergen, while the No. 2 doubles pair of Avah Kruse and Edith Albrecht defeated Ava Weller and Maddie Kisner 6-1, 6-4. The No. 3 doubles pair of Annika Wyffels and Ellie Martinka teamed up to mount a comeback, tiebreaker win over Mallory Wendorff and Julia Sherman, winning 0-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5).

Eagles head coach Pete Engeldinger said he went with this doubles lineup last week at home against Waseca on Sept. 3 and again at Worthington this past Tuesday. The Eagles lost to Waseca 6-1 and fell short to Worthington 5-2, but Engeldinger didn't want to give up on the new pairings yet.

"We decided to hang tough and have it today and it was back to really good, so we were pretty psyched about that," Engeldinger said. "Winning the doubles like that was huge because none of the doubles had really won. [No.] 2 [doubles] won a couple times, but 1 and 3 [doubles] hadn't won yet this year."

Marshall, which had its lone win of the year on Aug. 28 against Lac qui Parle Valley/Dawson-Boyd, fell to 1-12 on the year.

After the No. 1 doubles team of Joyce and Evans wrapped up their doubles win first, Kruse and Wyffels were next to earn a win for the Eagles and tie the match up at 2-all after Marshall took the No. 3 and 4 singles matches.

Wyffels and Martinka were a late pairing due to Madison Rieke having to pull out of the meet due to a wrist injury. Rieke was supposed to play with Wyffels, making Martinka's ability to step in and help pull out a win even more impressive.

"[The doubles teams] were super excited about that, especially that 3 doubles, they were ecstatic," Engeldinger said. "They got destroyed in the first set, 6-0 and it was over. I looked over and I'm like, 'What? The set is over? Oh, boy.' And then I started looking at some other matches and the next thing I see they're up 3-0 in the second set and then just continued to take it and then pull that off. Third set ended up being a tiebreaker and it was 7-5 in that tiebreaker, which is super close. Everyone's watching, everyone's cheering, so they were impressive with how much game they had."

The Eagles also needed at least one of their top two singles players to pull out a win to win the team match. Both did their job.

Carmen Schotzko came back to beat Kathryn Coudron at No. 1 singles 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, while Natalie Fischer earned a 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 win over Cora Medina at No. 2 singles.

Engeldinger said Fischer jumped out early and won her first set handily but woke up a sleeping giant in Medina, who rolled right back to win a big second set. He was happy with how Fischer responded late, though.

"That was huge that she was able to rally from that letdown in tennis," Engeldinger said. "That's what tennis is. You look at any scores out there, somebody wins 6-0 and then the other person wins 6-0 and you're wondering, 'What the heck?' Then the third set is often super close. Natalie had, I think, five aces in that third set. She stepped up and just started ripping the ball and was doing great."

For Schotzko, who has also spent time at No. 2 singles this year, she had to dig herself out of a hole early on with the narrow loss in the opening set to Coudron.

"Carmen lost the first set kind of handily and was kind of down on herself," Engeldinger said. "But she was able to right things and got that second set and the third set, she was getting ready to go to band because the volleyball was playing [Thursday night], so she had to run to go there, so she just locked in and was able to pull it off with all those distractions still and won that third set."

Julia Pafko defeated Lilly Rieger 6-1, 6-0 and Emry Jans defeated Eleanor Grathwohl 6-2, 6-4 to earn Marshall's wins on the day at No. 3 and 4 singles, respectively.

New Ulm hosts its Eagle Invite on Saturday morning at New Ulm High School.

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