Staff photo by Travis Rosenau. New Ulm’s Carmen Schotzko hits back during a No. 3 singles match against Mankato East/Loyola’s Amelia Hacker Thursday morning at New Ulm High School.
By Travis Rosenau
NEW ULM – With the season opener against one of the likely top teams in the section, Mankato East/Loyola, the New Ulm Eagles girls tennis team was tested right away for the start of the 2024 season.
East ended the morning with a 7-0 win over New Ulm at New Ulm High School.
A win at the start of the season would of course have been the preferred result, but the Eagles were able to learn some lessons from their defeat at the start of the season.
Even New Ulm’s No. 1 singles player Karlee Prahl, who routinely finished her matches early to win last season, struggled against East’s No. 1 singles player Sam Williams, losing 6-0, 6-0.
Pete Engeldinger, head coach of the New Ulm girls tennis team, said Williams is one of the best players Prahl will face this season and he was pleased with Prahl’s reaction after the loss.
“Karlee, ranked number 1, played against their number 1 last year and lost the first set pretty clearly, but came back and had a tiebreak in the second set, so that was pretty interesting,” he said. “So this year we weren’t sure, and her coach, Sam, that’s her name, her dad is the coach, said it was her day and she was in. And Karlee has a great attitude and she knows this Sam, so it’s looking good.”
In singles No. 2, Autumn Gaul defeated Joci Pettersen 6:1, 6:1. Singles No. 3 was the closest duel of the day, when Amelia Hacker defeated Carmen Schotzko 6:3, 6:4.
In singles No. 4, August Beltz defeated Natalie Fischer 6:0, 6:0.
In No. 1 doubles, Addie Wassman and Brynja Flitter defeated the New Ulm team of Aubrey DeMarais and Lillian Kral 6-0, 6-0. In No. 2 doubles, Hannah Westman and Sydney Cusick defeated Everly Batt and Kaylee Evans 6-0, 6-1, while in No. 3 doubles, Ashlyn Rigdon and Lexi Mock defeated Natalie Schwartz and Brielle Evans 6-0, 6-1.
“I like our team, we have a lot of good newcomers,” said Engeldinger. “We have six freshmen, two are on the varsity team and four are going to be there. I would say half of our team is freshmen in tennis, so we have 18 players and at least nine of them have never been on a tennis court before, so to speak (laughs). But we were kind of pleasantly surprised by our number, you never know what you’re going to get and 18 is a great number.”
Engeldinger said New Ulm used to open the season with a tournament hosted by Mankato East until that was discontinued two years ago, and talks are now underway to have a joint matchup around the same time in the last two seasons.
“Two years ago (East) stopped doing that – they had hosted a tournament with eight or nine teams, and they had always done that, and on that day,” he said. “And then they said, ‘Hey, we’re not doing this anymore, but how about you, New Ulm, if we have a competition that day instead?’ So we did that, we were there last year and we were here this year and it’s great.
“We have a good relationship with East and West. They are definitely tough, they are stronger. I didn’t expect that, I thought we might be a little closer, but across the board any of their players can play.”
The next game between New Ulm and Maple River will take place on Monday at 4:00 p.m.
