Oct. 12—SARTELL — For the first time in three years, a Bemidji High School team has captured a section championship.
After beating St. Cloud Tech 4-3 in the semifinals, the BHS girls tennis team bested Brainerd 5-2 to capture the Section 8AA Championship and advance to the State Tournament.
It’s the first section title for the program since 2021 — which is also the last section title for any Lumberjack team.
“It’s a program victory, but it’s also a Lumberjack victory — it’s all kind of connected,” head coach Kyle Fodness said. “Everybody can be really proud of this group. … They (competed) hard like they have all year and sometimes the chips fall your way, and they did today.”
With the unbeaten regular season streak carrying over into the section tournament, Bemidji has 26-straight wins heading into states.
“Not to be cliche, but for them, I really think they’re most excited that they get to take one more bus trip altogether,” Fodness said.
Though there were great performances throughout the lineup, both of Zoe McNallan’s matches on Friday turned out to be essential.
She secured a two-set win in No. 4 singles to start the day, then swapped over to No. 3 doubles alongside Mille Knott for yet another two-set victory.
“Everybody plays a big role in a victory, of course, no point counts for more than one,” Fodness said. “But Zoe was our clinching win against St. Cloud Tech and then she flipped over into doubles with Mille and they were the clinching points against Brainerd.”
Bailey Rupp also had a great showing, earning a win in No. 3 singles against St. Cloud Tech and No. 4 singles against Brainerd.
After losing in the previous game in No. 2 singles, Lilly Caron rebounded with a big singles win for the Jacks in No. 3 singles against the Warriors.
“Lilly delivered a really key win against Brainerd and she’d be the first person to tell you that she didn’t play her favorite match of the year against Tech,” Fodness said. “You can take a little momentum from your teammates and I think a great example of that was Lilly. She really was a catalyst in kind of getting us started and getting us going, and that’s a credit to her but also credit to her teammates for picking her up and giving her a chance to go back out there and win a really big match in the section final.”
Elena and Liz Peterson earned wins against Brainerd in No. 1 and No. 2 singles, respectively, to complete a sweep of the singles matches against the Warriors.
Against St. Cloud Tech, McNallan and Rupp delivered two of Bemidji’s points in singles. The Jacks’ other two points came courtesy of a couple of duos in doubles: Ruby McKeon and Sam Wood in No. 2 doubles and Ava Myhre and Knott in No. 3.
“I think the thing we were most happy with was, oddly enough, probably not the result,” Fodness said. “We really talked about (controlling) what you can control and you can’t control everything that’s going to happen in the court — you can control your attitude.
“So I think that was the thing we were really happy with from the start of the match all the way to the end. …They communicated just like they always do, and they had fun just like they always do, and they just saw there was another good opportunity to play good tennis with their friends. And it happened to be in the section final and semifinal today.”
Bemidji 4, St. Cloud Tech 3
Singles
No. 1: DNF
No. 2: Streit (SCT) def. Caron 6-0, 6-3
No. 3: Rupp (BHS) def. Cai 6-2, 6-0
No. 4: McNallan (BHS) def. Erickson 6-4, 6-3
Doubles
No. 1: DNF
No. 2: Wood/McKeon (BHS) def. Backes/Pfeiffer 6-3, 6-2
No. 3: Myhre/Knott (BHS) def. Schneider/Newbauer 6-3, 6-4
Bemidji 5, Brainerd 2
Singles
No. 1: E. Peterson (BHS) def. Mulholland 6-2, 6-2
No. 2: L. Peterson (BHS) def. Cole 6-0, 7-5
No. 3: Caron (BHS) def. Mithun 6-1, 6-4
No. 4: Rupp (BHS) def. Knoepke 6-0, 6-2
Doubles
No. 1: Folden/Kraemer (BRD) def. Wood/Berg 6-3, 6-3
No. 2: L. Soukup/R. Soukup (BRD) def. McKeon/Myhre 6-2, 6-0
No. 3: McNallan/Knott (BHS) def. Glynn/Grillo 7-6, 6-2
