Ankeny senior Dylan Victor is headed back to the boys’ state tennis tournament–and this time he’s taking Garrett Weichers with him.
After qualifying in singles a year ago, Victor teamed up with his sophomore teammate to win a Class 2A district doubles title on Wednesday at Iowa City High. The duo will return to Iowa City for the state tournament on May 27-28 at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Complex.
“It feels great,” said Victor. “It’s always nice when my hard work pays off and of course it feels good to win. Even better, I get to share those wins with Garrett.”
Ankeny has struggled in doubles this season, but Victor and Weichers had won enough matches to earn the No. 1 seed in the district. On Wednesday, they defeated their first two opponents in straight sets before outlasting second-seeded Jack Saunders and Sam Maddhi of Iowa City Liberty, 6-2, 3-6, 10-7, in the championship match.
“Doubles is a whole different game from singles,” Victor said. “There’s a lot more going on, and you have to really pay attention to what the other players are doing.”
After receiving a bye, Victor and Weichers rolled to a 6-1, 6-2 win over Julian Lally and Ja’Braun Reed of Iowa City High in the quarterfinals. They then followed with a 6-3, 7-5 triumph over fourth-seeded Max Hoden and Benjamin Call of Dubuque Hempstead to punch their ticket to state.
“We really weren’t sure (if we could make it to state),” Victor said. “Our first match was pretty easy, but we really didn’t know if we could beat the second team we played based off of watching them play. One of our biggest weaknesses is that we don’t have enough confidence in ourselves, even though we’re a good team.
“It took a lot of self-motivation for us to win those last two matches,” he added.
Ankeny also entered Michael Black and Treyton Riesberg in doubles. They dropped a 6-3, 6-4 decision to Waukee’s Harry Abbott and Yatharth Sirohi in the opening round.
In singles, Grady Schlosser and Trent James each won a match for the Hawks before being eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Schlosser romped to a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Cole Schiel of Hempstead. He then dropped a 6-0, 6-0 decision to top-seeded Abhay Anil of Iowa City High.
James posted a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Lucas Hilgendorf of Clinton. He then fell to second-seeded William Feagler of Iowa City High, 6-1, 6-0.
Feagler eventually defeated Anil, 6-4, 6-4, in the final.
Ames district
Ankeny Centennial, meanwhile, competed in the district tournament at Ames. The Jaguars did not advance any players to state.
Owen George and Crew Brazeau won a first-round match in doubles before being eliminated in the quarterfinals. That was Centennial’s lone victory on the day.
Waukee Northwest dominated that district, qualifying all six of its players for state.