The Ankeny Centennial boys’ tennis team won four of the five doubles matches to post a 7-4 victory at Urbandale in its CIML Conference opener on Thursday.
The Jaguars evened their overall record at 1-1.
“The boys played well and were happy to get the win,” said Centennial assistant coach Dustin Rhoads. “Again, the weather has not been great so we haven’t had much time on the courts since our last match, but we saw some improvement tonight. We had one of our starting singles/doubles players out (of the lineup) so all the guys had to step up and perform.”
The two teams split the six singles matches. Centennial got wins from Nick Hiney at the No. 2 spot, Holden Smith at No. 3 and Andrew Law at No. 4.
The Jaguars then dominated the doubles, dropping only the No. 3 match.
“We were able to be more aggressive in doubles,” Rhoads said. “You have to play singles first, so we will continue to find ways to work on that and getting out of the gates stronger, but overall we were a lot more solid than a week ago. We are proud of this group and their fighting spirit and effort on the court, and thrilled for them to get their first win of the season!
“Hopefully, we will have great weather for two home matches next week!” he added.
Here are the match-by-match results:
Centennial 7, Urbandale 4
Singles–Chaudhry (U) beat B. Wellendorf, 6-3, 6-1; Hiney (AC) beat Veliman, 6-1, 3-6, 1-0 (8); Smith (AC) beat Choudry, 6-3, 6-2; Law (AC) beat Folkers, 6-4, 6-3; Pawlowski (U) beat Walker, 2-6, 6-2, 1-0 (5); O’Dear (U) beat Halverson, 6-3, 6-3.
Doubles–B. Wellendorf-Hiney (AC) beat Veliman-Choudry, 6-0, 6-0; Smith-Law (AC) beat Chaudhry-Folkers, 7-6 (6), 6-2; Pawlowski-O’Dear (U) beat Walker-Halverson, 6-4, 6-4; Sanders-Maloney (AC) beat Danenhauer-Burns, 5-7, 6-2, 1-0 (7); Braun-C. Wellendorf (AC) beat Tentinger-Kleis, 6-2, 6-0.