Mounds View junior Rory Wahlstrand was contemplating whether to play singles or doubles in the high school postseason.
Wahlstrand — Mounds View’s No. 1 singles player — intended to play singles for much of the fall. But she knew a couple tough losses early in the campaign meant she wouldn’t be seeded if and when she reached the state tournament. So going into sections, she had a decision to make.
Mustangs coach Scott Sundstrom’s advice was straightforward.
“I told Rory, ‘You can play in the singles and have a great experience, and probably make it to the quarterfinals. Or you can try to win the state doubles tournament. That’s your decision,’” Sundstrom said. “I said, ‘If you play with your sister, you have a chance of winning the doubles tournament. … You’re going to have a great experience (in singles), but do you want the opportunity to be a state champion?’”
Wahlstrand, who knows she wants to take a run at a singles state title as a senior, figured this was her one opportunity to play with her sister, Reese — a freshman at Mounds View. So the duo decided to give it a go. It was the first time ever that they’d played doubles together. What could go wrong?
“We can get a little mad at each other sometimes, so we didn’t know how well it was going to work,” Reese said. “But it did.”
Indeed.
The Wahlstrands completed their march to the Class 2A state doubles title Friday at Baseline Tennis Center with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over the second-seeded Edina duo of Astrid Kerrman and Raya Hou.
The fourth-seeded doubles team from Mounds View bounced the top seed from Rochester Mayo in a three-set, semifinal thriller earlier in the day in a match that featured a number of momentum swings. Handling those emotions as sisters would be their biggest challenge.
“Would you be able to get along and be teammates and partners instead of merely sisters? How would you gel together as a partnership if things weren’t going well? And they did phenomenal,” Sundstrom said. “I think Rory is a fantastic big sister and had confidence in Reese. Reese played fantastic. If she did not play the way she did in the semifinal and didn’t compose herself so well, they wouldn’t have won that match.”
Reese flashed her athleticism throughout the tournament, despite dealing with a hip flexor injury suffered during the team state tournament earlier in the week. while Rory controlled matches with her dominant forehand as the two weathered any storm that blew their way.
“We just knew from the start that if we were going to fight with each other, it wasn’t going to work, so we had to come to an agreement,” Rory said. “We’re just too competitive to get in the way of each other, in the end. We both know that if we can’t get along, then we can’t win.”
And now, they’re forever champions. The sisters agreed they could “definitely” see themselves playing together again in the future, though likely not next fall in the high school season.
“Reese did tell me that her goal is to beat Rory next year. She wants to be No. 1 singles in front of her,” Sundstrom said with a smile. “But they can joke about that, where some siblings can’t.”
Rochester Mayo’s Claire Loftus won her second straight Class 2A singles title after Elk River’s Ava Nelson had to retire in the third set. Nelson won the first set of the final, but Loftus rebounded to win the second set 7-5, and was leading the final set 2-0 when the match ended.
Loftus edged Eagan’s Cassandra Li in three sets in the semifinals, and Li went on to win third place.
Class A
Minnehaha Academy sophomore Chloe Alley didn’t drop a set in the state singles tournament, breezing to the title. Alley dropped just nine games total across her four matches, winning the title match 6-0, 6-3 over Blake’s Fatemeh Vang at Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center in Minneapolis.
Maple River’s Macy Sohre and Kelsey Jaeger won the doubles crown, besting their Maple River teammates — Ally Mersman and Madison Ward — 6-4, 6-4 in the final.
