Sophomores Pedro Lacasa and Gabe Hanninen finished the tennis season strong despite a pair of defeats at the Section 8A tournament in Thief River Falls Wednesday, May 23.
The Laker twosome were defeated in the semifinals by Crookston’s Blake Fee and Luke Wardner 6-2 6-3, but had a shot at forcing a true second match if luck was in their favor and they won the third place match against Perham’s Gunner Anderson and Ryan Murphy.
Prior to the completion of the match Fee and Wardner were defeated in the finals by section champions Carter Onnka and Cole Gillespie of Thief River Falls two and two giving the Crookston duo true second if DL won the third place match but forcing a true second if Perham won.
Hanninen and Lacasa dropped the third place match 6-2, 6-4 to Perham to claim fourth place.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t break through in any of the matches today,” head coach Zach Biggar said. “When you get this deep in the tournament, it forces you to execute on almost every point. We had some hiccups today putting away balls at the net and serving well. Even though we played well at times, it just wasn’t enough. On a positive note, this is the highest finish an individual has finished since I started coaching in 2016. Looking forward to the off season and working on skills to hopeful allow us to go deeper in the tournament.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Fee and Wardner defeated the Perham pairing two and two to join Onnka and Gillespie as the section’s state representatives.
