By The Daily Republic
The Mitchell High School boys' tennis team took ninth place at the state tennis meet Friday and Saturday in Rapid City.
"I can't be more proud of our team," head coach Patrick Moller said. "We caught a lot of attention throughout the state. Even matches we lost were very competi-tive."
Mitchell finished the meet with 254 points, with every player on the team scoring points for the team.
"It was really a team effort," Moller said.
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The Kernels had a young squad throughout the season with only one senior, Taylor Moore, competing at the state tournament.
Moore went 2-2 in the No. 3 singles flight to finish his senior season at 12-6.
Moller said Moore was down eight games to four in the consolation semifinals before storm-ing a comeback.
Two points away from tying the match, Moore suffered a knee injury and Moller said he didn't think Moore would be able to continue but he finished.
"I've got to give him a lot of credit," Moller said.
Moore went on to lose the match while playing through immense pain.
Moller said Moore would not have been able to compete in the consolation champion-ship even if he had won in the semifinals.
Two Mitchell players did win consolation championships. Kanin Nelson and Alex Hegg both finished 4-1 at the tournament to win con-solation championships.
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Nelson played in the No. 4 flight while Hegg was the Kernels' No. 6 player, both are eighth-graders.
"For an eighth grader to do that is pretty im-pressive," Moller said.
Moller said the experi-ence the young players gained in the last couple of weeks in the season will help out next year's squad.
"Next year we aren't going to be young any-more," he said. "We'll have freshmen and sophomores, but they'll have more experience than most.
"Our goal is to be in the top five next year and I think that's a real-istic goal," Moller added.
