For the 11th-straight season the Luverne tennis team competed in the Class A State Tournament.
This year’s state tournament had a different feel to it than previous years because of a change in venue.
This year’s tournament marked the first time in 20 years that the Minnesota State High School League boys’ state tournament was outside.
Instead of playing indoors, the state meet was played at St. Cloud Tech High School where the Cardinals squared off against Mounds Park Academy, the defending state champions.
The Cardinals fell to Mounds Park Academy 5-2 on Tuesday, June 8.
Luverne’s Pierce Cunningham lost to Evan Fraser 6-3 and 6-1.
Griffen Jarchow picked up a point for the Cardinals by defeating Mario Larsen 6-0 and 6-2.
John Miller and Jayson Rops defeated Sean Parker and Akshay Somayajula in a thrilling three-set match.
Miller and Rops dropped the first set of the match 6-3. The Luverne duo then bounced back to win the second set 6-3 to force a third set. In the third set it was Miller and Rops coming out on the winning end with a 4-0 victory.
The Luverne doubles team of Blake Frahm and Ben Jarchow fell to Alex Vue and Henry Earl Fisher in both sets by a score of 6-2.
The Mounds Park duo of Diego Valverde and Tanner Gasteazoro defeated Ethan Nath and Logan Ommen by the scores of 6-2 and 6-3.
Luverne’s Kyle Ferguson lost to Garrett Webb in straight sets. Webb won the first set 6-1 and the second set 6-0.
Michael Mairs defeated Luverne’s Chance Tunnissen in straight sets. Mairs defeated Tunnissen in the first set 6-1 and in the second set 6-0.
In the state championship, Breck defeated Mound-Westonka 6-1 to win the Class A State Tournament.
In the individual state tournament on Thursday, June 10, Cunningham lost a hard-fought match to Minnehaha Academy’s Lincoln Reichenau.
Reichenau won a back and forth first set 7-5.
Cunningham bounced back to win the second set by the same score to force a third set.
In the third set Reichenau bested Cunningham 6-1.
Breck’s Clayton Haberman defeated Mound-Westonka’s Jack Lnider in the individual’s state championship.
In the doubles state tournament, the Luverne duo of Jarchow and Frahm fell in the first round to Hermantown’s team of Zam Plante and Aaron Evjen in straight sets.
The Hermantown duo won the first set 6-1 and then knocked the Luverne duo out of the tournament by defeating them in the second set 6-2.
Breck’s duo of Ishan Nadkarni and Zach Piehl defeated St. Paul Academy’s Liam Lynch and Luka Shaker-Check to win the doubles championship.