Washington sweeps Mitchell girls

The Mitchell Kernels girls’ tennis team was swept by Sioux Falls Washington in a dual match Thursday at Hitchcock Park in Mitchell.

“It’s tough to assess improvements when you’re playing these great girls,” head coach Pat Moller said. “We want to build and get our program to where they’re at in their (program).”

Moller said his team has to look for the positives when playing high-level competition such as Washington.

“Throughout the week we’ve focused on footwork, and we did a good job at improving on that today,” Moller said after the match. “We’ve got to look at this match and celebrate small successes.”

Grace Grabenstein, who has been out with a knee injury, practiced for the first time Wednesday and played a JV match against the Warriors.

Moller said Grabenstein is likely to come back into the lineup Monday.

“We’re trying to figure out decisions on how we’re going to handle that, but having too many players to choose from is a good thing.”

The Kernels are on the road against Sioux Falls Roosevelt at 4 p.m. Monday at Kuehn Park in Sioux Falls.

Singles: No. 1 Berkley Darr (SFW) def. Courtney Wells, 6-0, 6-1; No. 2 Mical Johnson (SFW) def. Chelseas Kracht 6-0, 6-2; No. 3 Jess Ackert (SFW) def. Tatum Dean 6-0, 6-0; No. 4 Maycee Trujillo (SFW) def. Haley Smith 6-1, 6-0; No. 5 Kassidy Kruger (SFW) def. Halle Larson 6-1, 6-1; No. 6 Elaina Sanley (SFW) def. Sammy Pooley 6-3, 6-1. JV: Alyssa Schmidt (SFW) def. Allison Buckley 8-3; Abbie Kneip (SFW) def. Kendra Hanks 8-4; Cayla Hirsch (SFW) def. Kaihlen Smith 9-8 (10-8); Anna Goodhope (SFW) def. Jaeden Lizakowski 8-1

Doubles: No. 1 Darr/Johnson (SFW) def. Wells/Kracht 6-1, 6-1; No. 2 Ackert/Trujillo (SFW) def. Smith/Larson 6-0, 6-2; No. 3 Kruger/Sanley (SFW) def. Pooley/Buckley 6-1, 6-0. JV: Schmidt/Kneip (SFW) def. Dean/Grace Grabenstein 8-1; Hanks/Smith (M) def. Hirsch/Goodhope 8-6.

Tags: sports, updates, kernels, tennis