Boys tennis: Lumberjacks defeat Superior, fall to East

The Cloquet-Esko-Carlton tennis team picked up its first dual meet win of the season last week against Superior, and put forth a strong effort against Duluth East on Monday afternoon.

The ’Jacks are 1-3 after a 7-0 win over the Spartans and a 5-2 loss to the Greyhounds but Coach Steve Rickstrom is pleased.

“East is pretty good,” Rickstrom said. “I thought we competed pretty well with them. That was a good sign for us.”

John Scheuer survived a 0-6 first set and came back to beat East’s Brenden Berry 0-6, 7-5, 6-4 at second singles, while Ryan Lind split the first two sets with East’s Michael Laliberte before the East player defaulted due to illness in the third.

The other high spot was at third doubles, where Chase Keye and Camron Hallfrisch lost a second set 7-5 to East’s Carson Kolodge and Aaron Zubsinski in a match where the CEC players were gaining

momentum.

“Chase and Camron played well,” Rickstrom said. “If they take that second set it might have been 4-3 and then you never know. We did a nice job with a young team against one of the top three teams in the area.”

On April 21, the ’Jacks had a much easier time with Superior. Only two of the matches went to three sets and CEC exploited Superior’s lack of depth.

Sean Kedrowski, Scheuer, Ryan Kedrowski and Ryan Lind swept the singles while the teams of Luke Heine and Tanner Webster, Josiah Sickler and Hallfrisch and Christian Pritchett and Joey Gotchnik swept the doubles.

“Superior had a couple of nice players, but they only have about 13 players in their whole program,” Rickstrom said. “They are struggling and that’s a match we generally expect to do fairly well in, year in and year out. They (Superior) sometimes have to put a lot of beginners out there on the court.”

Meanwhile, Rickstrom has already played 17 of his 26 students who are out for the team in varsity matches. A rained-out match on Tuesday against Ashland would have seen that number rise to 19.

“The top six kids are pretty much set,” Rickstrom said. “Players like Sickler and Hallfrisch are about ready for full-time varsity and we have a group of five or six right behind them. With only one senior, that’s encouraging.”

The team is scheduled to travel to Grand Rapids-Greenway Friday, April 29.

Tags: sports, tennis, cec, preps