As the regular season finishes up, the Becker Bulldog tennis team is hitting on all cylinders and racking up the wins.

Last Saturday, the team improved to 13-5 overall with a 6-1 win over Duluth East.

“Duluth is always good in tennis, but we came out firing on all cylinders tonight,” Bengtson said after the meet.  “This was the first time we have ever beaten them 6-1, they are always talented and well coached.”

Bengtson, Peterson and Herdina won their singles matches, while Lane/Brown, Carter Ager/Brock Herdina and Drury/Weiss were the doubles winners.

Monday night, Becker won a pair of matches against very good teams, defeating both Foley and Sartell by scores of 6-1.

“We came out focused and ready to play,” Coach Bengtson said.  

In beating Foley, the #8 ranked team in Class A, Becker swept the singles matches with the same lineup they have been using, while Lane/Brown and Weiss/Drury were doubles winners.

In the win over the Sabres, it was a clean sweep in the doubles matches and wins from Nuest, Peterson and Adler Herdina that gave the Bulldogs their 16th win of the season.  

Last Wednesday, Becker finished their M8 portion of the schedule with a 7-0 win over Princeton.

“The guys were really focused and dealt with about an hour rain delay tonight,” Bengtson said. “They keep improving and that will be put to the test in our section tournament.”

Becker opened play in Sections on Wednesday afternoon.  Details will be covered in next week’s Patriot.

Becker finished the regular season 16-5 overall, and secured their seventh Mississippi 8 Conference Championship.

“That is a great accomplishment for our program,” Bengtson said.

Sections

Tuesday afternoon, the Bulldogs opened Section play in pursuit of a third straight state tournament appearance with a 5-2 win over Buffalo.

“This was a huge win today in the Quarterfinals in Becker,” Coach Bengtson said immediately after the match.  “This is a big week for us as we pursue our third straight state appearance.”

Adler Herdina won the #4 singles match very quickly, 6-0, 6-0, while every other match was what Bengtson called “a battle”.  

After losing #2 doubles, Becker picked up a win in the #2 singles as Troy Nuest scored a 6-3, 6-0 win.  Next, the Bulldogs fell in the #3 doubles match before picking up a #1 doubles win by Sawyer Brown/Garret Lane (6-4, 6-4).  

“It was a really gritty performance by Sawyer Brown playing on a bad hamstring, and Garett Lane played excellent tennis with him!” said the coach.

Becker then took control with a Landon Peterson 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-0 win at #3 singles and a third set tiebreaker win by Zach Bengtson at #1 singles (5-7, 6-3, (6)).

The win advanced the Bulldogs to a Friday afternoon semifinal at Sauk Rapids versus the winner of the Sartell/Bemidji match.  With the win, the Bulldogs improved to 17-5 on the season.