Sep. 17—BEMIDJI — Bailey Rupp isn’t confident she’d be able to beat her older brother, Casey, if they played a tennis match against each other.
“I’ve played him before, but it’s been a while,” Rupp said. “I need to play him next summer. Last summer, if I would’ve played him I would’ve gotten destroyed. Now when I play him, maybe I’ll get a few good points in there.”
Rupp, a sophomore for the Bemidji High School girls tennis team, loves to compete. It runs in the family.
Casey was a boy tennis stalwart for the Lumberjacks, as well as an accomplished high school hockey player. Rupp’s older sister, Mollie, used to play tennis before switching to volleyball, where she became a Division-II commit to Minnesota Duluth as one of Section 8-4A’s top hitters.
As the youngest sister and the second youngest sibling, Rupp’s focus has always been hockey. That was until she picked up a tennis racket last fall.
“Honestly, when I first started, I thought maybe I’ll play some JV and have fun with it,” Rupp said. “Maybe I’ll just mess around and have fun. But now that I’m in it, it’s going way better than I expected.”
Rupp thought it’d be a sport where she could kill some time and stay in shape. She thought it would be “good for hockey.” Now, she’s playing it in between hockey games
During the fall, Rupp plays in the Elite League — an invite-only season for Minnesota’s top players. This weekend, Rupp’s schedule is booked.
“When I go to the cities for hockey, I’m going to play tennis with some of my friends down there,” Rupp said. “Now that I started playing tennis, I’ll play my whole life. Like this weekend, I’m going to play with some of my friends from Hill-Murray.”
In the meantime, Rupp is laying waste to all of her opponents on the high school tennis courts. She helped the Lumberjacks to a pair of 7-0 wins over Crookston and Detroit Lakes on Tuesday.
Rupp won in straight sets in both matches.
“She loves competition,” head coach Kyle Fodness said. “Loving winning is good, but loving competition is the best. She’s a player who loves the thrill of competing. Whether it’s hockey, tennis or a game we made up on the bus, she’s going to compete, learn and come up with a strategy to be the best at it. It’s infectious.”
Despite Rupp being only a sophomore, Fodness notices her drive to get the best out of her teammates, even though she’s predominantly a singles player.
“One of the things I like about this team is they have a very diverse background of athletic experiences,” Fodness said. “Bailey has put a lot of time into other sports. She might be a sophomore, but as far as high-level competition, she’s got a lot of experience. When Bailey feels we’re a little down, you can hear her. She’s on you.”
Rupp wasn’t going to let the Jacks spoil Senior Day on Tuesday. She called the triangular sweep an opportunity for Bemidji to get its “step back.”
“Our other matches have been good but we weren’t bringing our full energy,” Rupp said. “We got back to the team we were at the beginning of the season today. People were happy and had great attitudes. We wanted to be out here and play well.”
Bemidji moved to 18-0 on Tuesday and is poised to lock up the top seed in its sub-section tournament in two weeks. But the Lumberjacks aren’t getting ahead of themselves.
“Today, we had to focus on playing DL when we played DL instead of worrying about Crookston,” Rupp said. “If you look ahead too much, they’ll surprise you. Coach Kyle did a good job of keeping us focused.”
As for the ensuing match between Rupp and her older brother, Fodness opted not to weigh on who will have the upper hand.
“I want to stay on both of their good sides, and they’re both intimidating people,” Fodness quipped. “If you had a tennis tournament between Bailey, Mollie and Casey, I don’t know who would win but there would be arguments. I tell you what, I’ll go with Grady, the youngest.”
Bemidji 7, Detroit Lakes 0
Singles
No. 1: L. Peterson (BHS) def. Wolf 6-0, 6-0
No. 2: Caron (BHS) def. Skarie 6-0, 6-3
No. 3: Rupp (BHS) def. Cummings 6-0, 6-0
No. 4: Nyhusmoen (BHS) def. Frodenburgh 7-5, 1-6, 10-3
Doubles
No. 1: E. Petersen/Berg (BHS) def. Carlson/Lindberg 6-1, 6-1
No. 2: Wood/McKeon (BHS) def. Slipper/Hochgrabber 6-2, 6-2
No. 3: Breken/McNallan (BHS) def. Bloom/Wilke 7-5, 6-2
Bemidji 7, Crookston 0
Singles
No. 1: E. Peterson (BHS) def. Bailey 6-3, 6-2
No. 2: L. Petersen (BHS) def. Abrahamson 6-2, 6-0
No. 3: Rupp (BHS) def. Martin 6-0, 6-2
No. 4: Nyhusmoen (BHS) def. Hoerner 6-4, 6-2
Doubles
No. 1: Berg/Caron (BHS) def. Clauson/Fee 3-6, 7-6, 10-4
No. 2: Wood/McKeon (BHS) def. Laplante/Sanders 6-4, 6-1
No. 3: Myhre/Knott (BHS) def. Boll/Brekken 6-4, 6-1
