Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR RAPIDS – Mukundan Kasturirangan has played in a lot of important tennis matches during his prep career.

The West High senior won a district title earlier this month, has won four matches at the individual state tournament and helped the Trojans claim a team title in 2019.

Even with all that previous success Kasturirangan found himself in uncharted territory on Friday.

Kasturirangan reached the state semifinals for the first time in his career on Friday teaming with junior Luca Chackalackal to reach the Class 2A doubles semis at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.

“I’m very excited,” Kasturirangan said. “I’ve always wanted to be in this spot, Luca has always wanted to be here and it’s not easy, it’s not a given and we are here so we are ready to show out tomorrow.”

A varsity player for the Trojans since his freshman season, Kasturirangan is a two-time state doubles qualifier posting a 4-4 mark in his first two state tournament appearances.

Kasturirangan and Chackalackal placed sixth at the state meet in 2A in 2019 rattling off three consecutive consolation wins after an opening-round loss.

On Friday the duo put that previous experience to work while posting back-to-back straight set victories en route to the semifinals.

“I think the experience really helps we’ve been here before and while there are always going to be new things we sort of have an idea of what to expect,” Kasturirangan said. “Just being older and more mature we are able to handle adversity better.”

Kasturirangan and Chackalackal opened with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Neel Shah and Pranav Chandra of Cedar Falls in the first round.

The second-seeded West High duo then defeated Caleb Petersen and Nic Mackaman of Ankeny Centennial 6-2, 6-1 in the quarterfinals.

“We needed to play on our own terms and play how we want to play,” Kasturirangan said. “We are an aggressive team and we just needed to get to that. In the beginning we got a little away from being aggressive and we were kind of tentative but toward the end we started playing really aggressive and that was good.”

The Ankeny Centennial duo won the opening game in the quarterfinals before Kasturirangan and Chackalackal went to work.

West High’s tandem won the next two games and didn’t trail the rest of the match.

“Caleb (Petersen) has a huge serve and that first game we had a lot of trouble returning it and we decided to reset that next game, it was our serve so we had to slow things down a little bit and play aggressive,” Chackalackal said. “We just had to play our game.”

The win gives West High a state doubles semifinalist for the second consecutive season after Sasha Chackalackal and Eli Young finished second in 2019.

Kasturirangan and Chackalackal will face the Pleasant Valley duo of Mazen Alsheikha and Gavin Pangan of Pleasant Valley at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Veterans Memorial Tennis Center in Cedar Rapids.

The Pleasant Valley tandem defeated the third-seeded team of Sudeep Gadde and Arwind Sivakumar of Linn-Mar 6-4, 6-7 (7-3), 6-4 in the opening round and downed the Waukee duo of Ayden Fletcher and Sai Rayasam in the quarterfinals.

“It feels great,” Chackalackal said. “I think we have a good shot, we are playing well and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

The West High doubles team of BJ Wolf and Samir Singh went 2-1 on Friday posting a pair of consolation victories following an opening-round loss.

Singh and Wolf fell to the top-seeded Waukee tandem of Kaden Taylor and Quinn Monson 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round before a 6-1, 6-0 win over the Marshalltown team of Ethan Benscoter and Nile Christensen.

The West High team rallied for a 2-6, 6-0, 1-0 (10-3) win over the Waukee team of Fletcher and Rayasam to stay alive.

All 2A state tournament play was set for Veterans Memorial Tennis Center in Cedar Rapids on Friday but the decision was made on Thursday evening to move play indoors with singles and doubles in different locations.

West High singles players Eli Young and Jayden Shin each went 2-1 on Friday to advance to day two of the tournament.

Young won 6-0, 6-1 over Reed Kruger of Mason City in the opening round before falling to Will Blevins of Ankeny Centennial of Ankeny Centennial 6-1, 6-2 in the quarterfinals.

Shin defeated third-seed Jake Dolphin of Pleasant Valley in the opening round 6-4, 6-4 and fell to Cedar Rapids Washington’s Grayson Zulstra 6-2, 6-3 in the quarterfinals.

“It’s little tough for our team with the different locations,” Chackalackal said. “We prefer to all be together but it worked out.

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