Pella boys tennis sweeps districts to send six to state
May 9—PELLA — The start of the boys tennis postseason began on Wednesday at Caldwell Park in Pella as the Dutch got off to a strong start to their 2024 postseason hopes. Pella ended up snatching all six entries for a second consecutive year after another strong showing.
"Our number one seeds were pretty solid," Pella head coach Josiah Brandt said. "It's hard to to bet against returning doubles champions and Cameron [Rowe] has made state the past two years and top eight doubles. We were confident with them and then we put in a lot of work with Nile [Roozenboom] and Jordan [Shaffer] and it was good to see them in that tough battle against Newton and then against Grinnell they really really came together. That was fun to see."
Starting in the singles ladder, defending Class 1A doubles champion Jack Briggs is looking to add a singles title to his resume and he started as the top seed in Pella. He showcased why with a dominating day where he only dropped two games on his way to the finals while securing a spot at state where he will try to win the rare feat of obtaining a state doubles and state singles title in his high school career.
"Jack put in so much time in the offseason," Brandt said. "I'm not a big cliche guy, but he wants it real bad in a good way. He's beaten both Moon brothers from North Polk and that's when we kind of were like, all right, it's paying off and he's not missing. He's just really matured as a really nice young man and I feel like he's treated everybody with respect. He's turned into a complete player and a complete human being over the past four years so that's been really fun to see."
On the other side of the bracket, Pella's Ben Van Gorp was also looking to get back to state as he picked up the No. 3 seed in this tournament. He would end up grabbing wins of 6-3, 6-2 and 6-0, 6-4 on his way to the semifinals where he would take on the No. 2 seed of Ethan Valtman from Newton for the final spot at state.
Van Gorp started very well with a 6-0 win in the first set but had to grind out the second set against a resilient Valtman to eventually win the second set in a tiebreaker 7-6 (3) to lock in his spot at state.
Van Gorp was set to face his teammate of Briggs to determine a district champ but after one game of play Van Gorp would have both of his legs lock up from cramping and would be force to retire by injury default.
Over in the doubles bracket, one half of the defending Class 1A state doubles champions of Joshua Roozeboom was paired up with Cameron Rowe as the duo had the top seed on the day. Like Briggs, they would only drop two games on their way to the finals to lock in their spot at state. After a slow start to the new duo, Roozeboom and Rowe have hit their stride at the right time.
"I think they might have started the season either 2-2 or 1-2," Brandt said of Roozeboom and Rowe. "They played the Moon's and they know that's tough. Joshua had spent the past year playing with Jack and just getting used to it and then Cam is a little different. It just took time and then you watch them play against our number three doubles team today and they played great."
Pella's other doubles team of Nile Rozenboom and Jordan Shaffer were the three seed and started with a 6-0, 6-0 win before a hard-fought 6-1, 7-5 win over Newton in the quarterfinals. That set up a semifinal match against Grinnell and the two made quick work of it with a 6-1, 6-0 win to get into the finals against their teammates.
But it was the top Pella duo getting the upper hand on their teammates with a 6-0, 6-1 win to secure the district title. This year's state doubles bracket is expected to be a very tough one with several of the top ranked teams including Xavier and Wahlert both seeing their best players op for doubles in the individual tournament over singles.
"Josh was hitting volleys 14 centimeters over the net today and they've really started to play together," Brandt said. "Their serves have really improved over the past week. Doubles is stacked. We didn't really know what people were going to do across the state but they're going to be in a really talented doubles field. But you know, if they're serving 110 down the 'T' like they did today, we'll take that."
Pella Christian was also in action in Pella on Wednesday. Their top singles player of Kirby VanWyngarden got the three seed but was ousted in the quarterfinals by Grinnell's Chase Rundall of a tough 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 loss. PC's other singles player Evan Tschetter fell in the first round 6-0, 6-1.
In doubles play, Shaun Bos and Aaron Meinders were the two seed for the day and they started strong with a 6-1, 6-0 victory before falling the quarterfinals 7-5, 6-4 to Grinnell's Freeman/Simon. PC's other duo of Rob Schreur and Rhett Terpstra were the No. 4 seed and got wins of 6-1, 6-2 and 6-0, 6-1 on their way to the semifinals before running into Roozeboom/Rowe and falling 6-0, 6-0.
The Class 1A Individual State Tournament is on May 21-22 at Byrnes Park in Waterloo. No. 2 Pella (7-0) starts team tournament play on Saturday at 10 a.m. against Des Moines Hoover (0-9) while Pella Christian (4-5) is also in Pella and will face Clarke (4-3) in their first round matchup.
Colin Peters can be reached at 641-672-2581, by email at cpeters@oskyherald.com or on Twitter @ColinPetersOH.
