Head Coach Nate Bucher’s Becker girls tennis team is youthful but talented, and they picked up some impressive wins in the past week over much larger schools.

Last Saturday, the Bulldogs traveled to Buffalo and came away with a 2-1 record, notching wins over Farmington and Moorhead before falling to the host Bison. While the MSHSL lists Becker’s enrollment as 844 students for competition purposes, the Saturday lineup showed Farmington’s MSHSL number at 2,104, Moorhead’s at 1,668 and Buffalo’s at 1,735. Despite being significantly smaller in numbers, the Bulldogs held their own.

In the win over Farmington, it was all Becker, as the Bulldogs blanked the Tigers, 7-0.

In the singles matches, #1 player Maddie Moe blanked her opponent in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0, while #2 player Dani Nuest was nearly as dominant, winning by a pair of 6-1 scores. Number 3 player Ayla Brown kept the rout intact with her own shutout win, 6-0, 6-0 before Lauren Croal closed out the singles sweep with a win in the #4 spot.

The doubles matches were a bit closer, but Becker still dominated the match with the duos of Jazlyn Toedter / Madison Bass (7-5, 6-3), Julia Peterson / Faith Gott (6-3, 6-2), and Kennedy Drehmel / Lily Anderson (6-4, 6-2) each picking up wins.

Spuds

In the second match win over Moorhead, the scores were closer but the Bulldogs eked out a 4-3 win.

Nuest and Brown scored convincing wins in their singles matches, while #4 player Lauren Croal had an unbelievable win that made the difference for the Bulldogs. Croal won the first set, 6-0 before falling in the second 4-6. That set up the third set and in the tie-breaker, Croal outlasted her opponent and scored a 20-18 win to seal the match. 

“It was awesome,” said Bucher. “It was a tie-break instead of playing a full third set, but she could have just played a full set!” 

In doubles play, the #3 team of Drehmel / Anderson picked up the tightly contested win (6-7, 7-5, 11-9) to give the Bulldogs the match win.

Bison

Becker finished their tough day by taking on the Bison and came up short, 2-5.

Nuest and Brown again paced the team with wins over their individual opponents, but the Bulldogs just ran out of steam against a deep Buffalo squad.

Bluejackets

Tuesday evening, Becker continued M8 Conference play and dropped an extremely close match against Cambridge-Isanti, 3-4.

Moe played well at #1 singles, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, while Brown picked up a 6-3, 6-1 win at #3 singles to give Becker a split in the singles matches. 

In doubles play, there were some very close matches with the #2 team of Peterson / Gott picking up a 6-4, 6-2 win for the Bulldogs.