When one door closes, another opens; but often people look long and regretfully upon the closed door that they do not see the ones which open for them.
The young Dickinson varsity tennis team has learned from their experiences thus far in the season, and it showed when they traveled the long road to Minot for their first conference encounter on April 22.
The team competed in singles and doubles play, and while the visit ended in a loss (1-8), the lone victory earned came against the No.1 Magicians’ seasoned player and showed promise for the development of the Midgets’ against top opposition.
Less than a week ago the Midgets faced the Magicians during a Minot non-conference invitational, which featured competition against Jamestown and Williston as well. The Dickinson team went (2-1) against the three schools with their only loss coming to Minot — a foreshadowing of yesterday's matches.
The difference between last week and this was Dickinson’s ability, in such a short period, to show improvement. When freshman Valeria Bradley defeated Minot’s junior Sofia Egge in two sets, 6-2 and 7-5, the growth was evident.
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Head coach Lia Bradley experienced more than the pride of a coach, but also of a mother when she coached her daughter to victory against a well seasoned Magician junior. Saying of the victory, “Valeria winning was amazing against their number one.”
From the single matches, other than Bradley’s win, the majority of Dickinson players were defeated by fairly wide margins as they continued to gain confidence and experience against top competition. Junior Lola Homiston, Dickinson’s No.4 seat, gave a compelling fight in her matchup against senior Sideny Fettig leading to a tiebreaker after going 6-2 and 7-6, before losing a tightly contested match 8-6.
The singles performance in the books, doubles competition saw Valeria Bradley and her duo and team co-captain Emma Dazell lose in both sets 3-6.
Once again Homiston was involved in a close match with her partner, senior Elizabeth Dean who is also a co-captain for the Midgets. Their first set went in their favor of 6-3, the second set a close defeat 6-7, followed by a tiebreaker ending 3-7.
With Minot already the victor of the match, they resolved the doubles portion of the conference match with a 10-point tiebreaker — going 7-10 for Minot.
“That was a pretty exciting match. Both teams were watching it closely,” Coach Bradley said. “They are very good, that Minot team, so it being so close was amazing.”
The Minot tennis team, likely to be No.1 in WDA by season’s end, have clinched all but one conference match on the season thus far— the lone blemish coming against the Midgets’ Bradley, tarnishing their near-perfect record.
DHS will be defending their home court against Bismarck High School at 3 p.m. on April 27, in what will be a defining moment to determine the potential of a Midgets’ WDA playoff appearance.
