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B.E. Area tennis to face Osakis in state team quarterfinals

BLUE EARTH — Konny Wolff sat in the back of McDonalds with her husband, fiddling with her coffee and going over her notes on a Sunday morning. She was waiting to be interviewed about her Class ‘A’ state-bound Blue Earth Area Bucs girls tennis team and state-qualifying doubles tandem of Julia Hanson and Te’a Armstrong.

The day before, Wolff received an email from Minnesota Tennis Coaches Association executive secretary Richard Engelstad saying that she had been named Section 3A coach of the year. It seems that the third-year head coach hit a streak of good fortune that she never would have imagined.

“It’s just been amazing,” Wolff said. “Had somebody, at the beginning of the year, told me that we would be 17-2 (dual-meet record) and headed to state, I would have said, ‘Probably not this year. We’re young.'”

Wolff’s young, talent-clad team went from 6-9 last year to 13-2 midway through this season. The team carried the wins over into the postseason and made it to the sectional finals, beating St. James Area, 4-3. Wolff had mentioned the Saints, who had reached the state team tournament for 12 straight years, as the Bucs’ biggest obstacle.

Despite the Bucs’ relaxed nature before the championship, the team channeled its competitive nature and edged the Saints, with Hanson producing the meet-winning match. With a 3-all meet, Hanson beat No. 2 netter Ellie Becker, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 to clinch the Bucs’ second state berth in four years.

“I think with the younger girls not being up there before, it’s going to be a different atmosphere,” Wolff said. “I just hope they can keep their focus and not get caught up in all the hype.”

The Bucs will face Section 6A champion Osakis at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Reed-Sweatt Tennis Center in Minneapolis.

Ironically, Osakis (20-2) beat Minnewaska Area, who, like St. James, is a regular at state, 4-3, for the team’s first state trip since 2013.

“I did some research and tried to compare records, but the people we played, they didn’t play, so it’s hard to compare,” Wolff said. “They’re good, so I think they’ll be tough, but if our girls play the way they have been, I think it’ll be a good match.”

The other three Class A state team quarterfinal matches on Tuesday in Minneapolis pit Section 2 champion Holy Family Catholic will go against Section 7 winner Virginia at 8 a.m. in the opening showdown, while Section 4 representative The Blake School and Litchfield, who won Section 5, play at noon.

Rochester Lourdes from Section 1 ends the day with a quarterfinal meet against Section 8 champion Roseau at 2 p.m.

This will be the Bucs’ 20th state appearance in the tournament’s 43-year history and second since 1995. The team finished in the top four nine times and top three for five straight years (1984-88). BEA was the runnerup in 1981, 1984 and 1988, and won the state championship in 1985 during a 14-year state run between 1977 and 1990.

The 1985 championship team opened the state tournament with a 3-2 win over St. Paul Academy, which Edina coach Chuck Anderson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune he believed to be “the biggest upset ever achieved in girls’ tennis.” St. Paul Academy was favored to win the tournament that year and had won five consecutive titles between 1979-83.

The upset-minded Bucs then beat Long Prairie, 3-2, in the semifinals and won the state title, 4-1, against Rochester Lourdes.

The Bucs’ most recent trip to state was in 2014 when Wolff’s daughter, Karleigh, was a member of the team and the BEA current seniors — then freshmen — served as alternates. The Bucs, who were in Section 2, lost the opening round to Section 3 champion St. James, 5-2, but won the consolation semifinals, 4-3, against Minnewaska Area.

Rochester Lourdes got the consolation semifinal win over BEA, 6-1.

Karleigh Wolff also went to state as a individual in 2014 and Konny was an assistant coach to then-head coach Terry Barnes.

“I thought after my daughter graduated, I wouldn’t be so nervous, but I was telling somebody, ‘Boy, I’m just as nervous as I was when my daughter was playing,'” Konny Wolff laughed.

Two days after the state tournament starts, Hanson and Armstrong will compete against No. 3-seeded Avery Stilwell and Shanna Kinny of Litchfield at 10 a.m. in the state doubles tournament at Reed-Sweatt Tennis Center.

The two spent the majority of the year playing singles, with Hanson at the No. 2 position with a record of 16-3 in dual meets, while Armstrong went undefeated at the No. 4 spot (15-0). As the second singles player, Hanson, a senior, was given the option of playing either singles or doubles. After discussing with Wolff, Hanson decided to ask Armstrong to play doubles with her, and the freshman agreed. While the Bucs beat USC in the team section semifinals, Hanson and Armstrong lost to Rebels’ Emma Barnd and Carly Weber, 7-5, 6-0, in the section doubles championship. Armstrong and Hanson defeated Pipestone netters Lauren Lapthorn and Paige Ahrendt, 6-1, 2-6, 6-2, in the semifinals.

The Bucs’ duo, however, had to play a true-second match when Lapthorn and Ahrendt lost to Abby Bruegger and Katelyn Langworthy of Maple River, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4. Armstrong and Hanson earned the win over Bruegger and Langworthy via a 6-4, 6-3 decision.

“I think our girls were in better shape condition-wise because the Maple River girls seemed to, at the end, have a lot of unforced errors. … I think it came down to conditioning,” Wolff said.

Before their doubles match at the individual state tournament Thursday, Armstrong and Hanson will prepare for Osakis as the Bucs team looks to continue its successful season.

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