Luverne tennis off to a winning start

The Luverne girls’ tennis team had a successful start to the 2021 season with a pair of road victories on Saturday.
The Cardinals defeated the Morris Area Tigers and Benson Braves by identical 4-3 scores.
LHS number 1 singles player, Mia Wenzel, and the No. 3 doubles team of Tori Hemme and Priscilla Muehr all went undefeated for the day with 2-0 records.
LHS girls’ coach Jon Beers said he is optimistic about the new season, even though there are only a few returning players with varsity experience. 
“We only have three returning players with varsity matches from last year,” Beers said. “But the new varsity players didn’t seem to be nervous.”
 
Luverne 4, Morris Area 3
Wenzel, returning No. 4 singles player from last year, defeated Morris Area’s Abbigail Athey in a thrilling 3 set match 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.
At No. 2 singles, Luverne’s Olivia Wieneke lost 6-2, 6-0 to Kassidy Girard. No. 3 singles Jacey Smith lost a close three-set match to Cate Kehoe 6-2, 4-6, 6-4.
Luverne’s Roselyn Hartshorn defeated Claire Stark 6-3, 7-5 at No. 4 singles.
Kristin Rud and Hope Thorson from Luverne defeated Lakie Manska and Brianna Schmidgall 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 at No.1 doubles.
Luverne’s Katharine Kelm and Sarah Stegenga lost to Hope Sperr and Kjersten Nibbe 6-2, 2-6, 6-0 in No. 2 doubles. At No. 3 doubles, Tori Hemme and Priscilla Muehr from Luverne, defeated Liz Pollard and Lydia Fynboh 7-5, 6-0.
 
Luverne 4, Benson 3
In the Benson match, Wenzel defeated Elise Duncan 6-2, 6-3 at No. 1 singles.
“Mia played great in both of her matches. I am really excited to see how her season goes,” Beers said.
Rud and Thorson moved to singles for the Benson match. At No. 2 singles, Rud lost to Hannah Helm 6-0, 6-2 and Thorson lost 6-2, 6-0 to Elle Kletshluer at No. 3 singles.
“Kristin and Hope played a hard three-set match against Morris Area,” Beers said.
“I was pleased to see how hard they played their singles matches without much time between the matches.”
At No. 4 singles Hartshorn lost to Abby Dejoy 6-4, 7-6. 
Luverne won all three doubles matches in the Benson match.
Wieneke and Smith played No. 1 doubles after playing singles in the first match and won an exciting match 4-6, 6-3, 10-2.
No. 2 doubles Kelm and Stegenga won 7-6, 4-6, 10-8, and No. 3 doubles Hemme and Muehr won 3-6, 7-5,
10-5.
“All three doubles teams had exciting matches with all three going to a third set tiebreaker,” Beers said.
“If we had lost any one of the matches, we would not have won the team dual. I could not be more proud of all the girls that played doubles matches today.”
Luverne returns to action at 2 p.m. on Tuesday for their home opener with matches against Yellow Medicine East and MACCRAY.