By Jordan Schachterle
The Surveyor
Every one of Berthoud’s tennis players was bound to get a win at some point this season and Thursday afternoon was the day to get many of those victories.
After the team’s many struggles from top to bottom in their match against University on Wednesday evening, Berthoud High School (BHS) bounced back by defeating Mountain View High School (MVHS) in a 7-0 sweep.
“If you keep working at it and you persevere, you’re gonna get a win. It might not be tomorrow or today, but it’s gonna be at some point,” BHS Head Coach Alex Grant said. “You’ve got to depend on yourself and be confident in yourself, and look what happened.”
Senior Eriana Rennaker led the Spartans in their sweep on Thursday as the team’s one-singles player. After a straight-set loss the day before, Rennaker found her groove against Mountain View’s Audra Axline.
The first set was tight until the final point. Each player grabbed their respective points off of long rallies. The lead was sent back and forth between Rennaker and Axline, eventually going to a tiebreaker. Rennaker won the tiebreaker, taking a 1-0 lead.
The momentum was on Rennaker’s side as they moved into the second set. Rennaker ran away with the victory 6-2 to capture her first singles win.
“I had a pretty rough one last night and I took it as motivation for this match to come in and do my best,” Rennaker said, “It really pushed me to see that, yeah I’m gonna have tough ones, but I got it.”
The story was all the same for the rest of Berthoud’s singles players. In two-singles Gretchen Marty completed a straight-set defeat 6-1 and 6-4. It was not an easy run for Marty, as she had to battle back in the second set of the match.
“Gretchen (Marty) battled back, she was down I believe 4-1 or something like that in the second set and she battled back and won the next six games,” Grant, who is in his second year as head coach, said, “So that’s pretty impressive, especially in singles, and it’s only her second singles match.”
Junior Emma Lundgreen dominated as well in number-three singles, completing another straight-set victory. The first set finished 6-3 and the second a 6-0 shutout.
On the other set of courts all four of the BHS doubles teams continued to dominate the Mountain Lions.
Berthoud’s one-doubles pair of Kali Thoren and Delaney Lord took the first set 6-2 and started the second with a strong lead. The MVHS pair of Hope Brown and Mandy McNulty fought back and forced a tiebreaker, but the Spartans won 8-6 to take the match.
In two-doubles, the pair of Alana Hymel and Lily Lind emerged victorious in yet another two-set win. They took the first 6-3 and the second 7-5.
Ellie Yuska and Sydney Hocker, Berthoud’s three-doubles pair, came out strong 3-0 in the first set and won it 6-4. They completed the match with a dominant 6-2 win in the next set.
The final match of the evening was the Spartans four-doubles pairing of Sarah Gordon and Jaden Millward. MVHS claimed their sole set victory in this match, but Berthoud remained undefeated match-wise 6-1, 3-6, 6-2.
The 7-0 victory over the Mountain View Lions was the first of the season for the Berthoud Spartans. BHS will look to start a win streak this week.
