A week removed from the St. Peter boys tennis team’s season coming to a close in a round one loss to Southwest Christian H.S., six Saints returned to Gustavus Adolphus College to compete in the Section 2A Individual tournament. The doubles pairing of senior Luke Gilbertson and junior Quinn Dixon, rolled to the semifinals before suffering their first loss, but managed to battle all the way back to claim second in the section and earn a trip to the MSHSL State Championships.
Dixon and Gilbertson earned a 2-0 (6-0, 6-3) victory and reached the semifinals with a 2-0 (6-3, 7-5) victory. In the semifinals, they faced eventual section champions Carter Reinbold and Charlie Paul of Mound Westonka, falling 2-0 (6-1, 6-0).
With their season oficially on the line, Dixon and Gilbertson fell behind with a 7-5 loss in set one of the third-place match but managed to rally with back-to-back 6-2 wins to advance to the true second-place match with a trip to state on the line. In an absolute marathon of a contest against Joe Frundt and Brady Lorenz of Blue Earth, the St. Peter duo dropped the first set 7-6 in tiebreaks.
The grind continued and after Dixon and Gilbertson forced a third set with a 7-6 win, there was never much of a gap in favor of either team. The third saw them battle back and forth and with a third straight set of tiebreaks, pull ahead to earn the 7-6 win and punch their ticket to state.
For the duo, this marks the second straight year they have made the trip to state after having competed in the State championship tournament last season as members of the varsity team.
The MSHSL Class A Individual tournament will take place at the Reed-Sweatt Tennis Center in Minneapolis Thursday and Friday, June 6-7. The doubles competition begins at 10 a.m. Thursday with action getting underway Friday beginning at 8 a.m.
The other doubles pairing for St. Peter featured Eli Stoll and Ashton Baker, but they were eliminated in the opening round of the tournament 2-0 (6-2, 6-2).
Competing in the singles tournament for St. Peter Ezekiel Ribar and Jaxson Schaefer. Ribar won his first round match 2-0 (6-2, 6-2) before being eliminated in the second round with a 2-0 (7-5, 6-2) loss to Andrei Rivera of St. James.
Schaefer meanwhile faced Owen Collins of Holy Family Catholic in the opening round of the tournament and fell 2-0 (6-2, 6-1)
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