The Ankeny Centennial girls’ tennis squad was looking to advance to the final four of the Class 2A state team tournament for the first time ever.
The Jaguars will have to wait at least another year to accomplish that goal.
Visiting Valley broke a 3-3 tie by winning a pair of doubles matches and defeated Centennial, 5-3, in the Class 2A quarterfinals on Monday at the Prairie Ridge courts. The Tigers will join Dowling Catholic, Cedar Falls and Iowa City West in the Class 2A semifinals.
Centennial, which opened the season with a 6-5 loss at Valley on April 6, finished with a 9-3 record under first-year coach Armando Espinosa.
“Going into doubles, we knew it was going to be tough,” said Centennial senior Jordyn Gustafson. “Valley is a super tough competitor and we saw that at the beginning of the season when we played them for the first time. Sadly, the matches didn’t fall our way, but we are all super proud of each other for making it to the quarterfinals for the first time in school history.”
The two teams split the six singles matches. The Jaguars got victories from Claudia Guan at the No. 2 position, Gustafson at No. 3 and Esther Guan at No. 4.
Gustafson posted a 6-4, 4-6, 10-7 win over Elaine Wang. She won the earlier matchup against Wang, 6-4, 6-2.
“Singles was a super tough match,” Gustafson said. “Elaine and I are very similar players, so the points were long and could’ve gone either way. The main way that I pulled out the win was by getting out of my head and playing my own game. I had to be patient and wait for the right shots in order to win points.”
Valley then won the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles matches to clinch the victory.
The Jaguars will now prepare for next week’s individual state tournament at Iowa City. Gustafson and Abbie Peterson qualified in singles, while the Guan sisters will compete in doubles.
Here are the match-by-match results:
Valley 5, Centennial 3
Singles–Peterson lost, 6-4, 6-0; C. Guan won; Gustafson won, 6-4, 4-6, 10-7; E. Guan won; Kruse lost, 7-5, 6-2; Truong lost.
Doubles–Peterson-Gustafson lost, 6-2, 6-4; C.Guan-E. Guan DNF; Kruse-Den Adel lost, 6-2, 6-2.
