The Becker Bulldog girls tennis team lost to Thief River Falls last Friday in the Section 8AA semi-finals in Sartell.

 

Olivia Hultgren (6-1,6-0) and Rachel Lukkarilla (6-2, 6-1) of Becker won their matches at #1 and #2 singles, but Thief River Falls’ #3 and #4 singles players — as well as all three doubles teams — beat the Bulldogs 5-2 to advance to the finals.

 

Ashley Souba, playing at #3 singles, was defeated by TRF’s Elle Jorgenson, 6-1, 6-2 and Anna Ritchie, playing at singles #4, lost to TRF’s Kira Beier, 6-3, 6-4.

 

Becker’s Madison Anderson and Hannah Bengtson lost to Kora Torkelson and Allison Okeson at #1 doubles, 6-1, 6-0. Taylor Pawlicki and Megan Nelson lost to TRF’s Juliet Tunberg and Khloe Lund, 6-7, 6-2, 10-8 at #2 doubles. Amanda Brown and Ally Kangas lost their match to Shawna Spears and Sadie Cleven, 6-1, 6-4 at #3 doubles.

 

Hultgren and Lukkarilla — seeded #2 in the South bracket — knocked off the North’s #3 seed Saturday morning — Thief River Falls’ Okeson and Torkelson — by a score of 6-2, 6-3 to advance to the semi-finals to play the North’s #1 seed. Becker’s duo played an amazing first set, hitting strong groundstrokes and putting away many points at the net. But Bemidji hung in and started making fewer errors in the second and third set and eventually won, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 to make the finals. 

 

“It was a great match, but hard to come out on the losing side,” said Head Coach Nathan Bucher.

 

Hultgren and Lukkarilla went on to beat Brooke Mimmack and Ashley Fitterer of Brainerd in the third place match, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

 

In singles play, Souba lost to Ashley Grise of Apollo and Brown lost to Mataya Ganley of Apollo to end the Becker girls tennis team’s season.