The Luverne tennis team qualified for the state tournament for a 10th straight year. They’ll be in action on Tuesday, June 8, at St. Cloud Tech High School against Mounds Park Academy.
Pierce Cunningham also qualified for the individual state tournament, and the doubles team of Blake Frahm and Ben Jarchow qualified for the doubles state tournament.
Cunningham will compete against Lincoln Reichenau of Minnehaha Academy in the first round on Thursday, June 10, at 8 a.m.
“Pierce making the state tournament as an individual is truthfully no surprise,” Luverne tennis coach Lucas Larson said.
“He has been the team’s rock all season. His success has been deserved. Pierce is the definition of hard work paying off.”
Frahm and Jarchow will compete against Hermantown’s team of Zam Plante and Aaron Evjen on Thursday, June 10, at 10 a.m.
“Blake and Ben achieving first in the section and making the state tournament is well deserved,” Larson said.
“All season we’ve relied on them getting wins. To see them get recognized is awesome. I have never seen two guys have so much fun playing together.”
Cunningham has been around the game of tennis for quite some time. His two older siblings, Carissa and Graham Cunningham, have pushed him to become a better player.
“It means a lot,” Cunningham said. “My sister came really close back when she was in high school,” Cunningham said. “My brother missed out on it as well. It was nice to qualify and do something they didn’t.”
In a sibling rivalry, the elder sibling usually has the upper hand. Pierce said that his older brother no longer holds that edge.
“My brother always trash-talked me when I was younger,” Cunningham said. “I always told him that I’d be better than him one day. Here I am. I’ve played him a couple times and was able to beat him.”
Qualifying for the state tournament is a testament to all the work that Cunningham has put into his game. All that hard work started during the summer of his seventh-grade year.
“I started playing almost every day during the summer,” Cunningham said. “That’s when I really started to play a lot.”
His teammates noticed the effort as well. “He plays all the time,” Jarchow said. “He’s just a really good player.”
One of Cunningham’s strengths on the court is the velocity of his hits.
“He just hits with a lot of power,” Frahm said. “He’s just a really consistent player.”
Frahm started playing tennis when he was in eighth grade.
Frahm was a member of the 2019 state tournament team for the Cardinals. He said he’s excited to play in the team tournament and the doubles tournament.
“It means a lot,” Frahm said. “I played third doubles when we went to state as a team. This year playing one doubles and qualifying as a doubles team meant a lot.”
The Luverne duo plays loosely on the court, and the joy that they play with is a big reason why they’ve enjoyed such a successful first season playing together, Cunningham said.
“They just have fun out there,” he said. “They’re always smiling and talking to their opponents. I think they just really enjoy being out there and playing together.”
The 2021 season marked the first year that Jarchow played tennis. He intended to be on the team last spring, but due to COVID-19, there was no spring sports season in Minnesota.
“I just didn’t enjoy baseball as much when I got to high school,” Jarchow said.
“I quit after my freshman year. I was going to join tennis last year as a junior, but then it got canceled. I started playing this year and it was a lot of fun.”
It’s all about the people, Jarchow said, adding that everybody involved with the tennis program made his first season on the team enjoyable.
“The people involved make it fun,” Jarchow said. “We don’t take it too seriously and we have fun with it.”
Luverne’s No. 1 doubles team earned the top seed in the section tournament and kept on winning all the way to a state tournament bid.
Jarchow said the key to a title run is to continue to enjoy the ride.
“We just have fun,” Jarchow said. “The other teams take it too seriously sometimes. We just go out there and have fun.”