Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – As afternoon temperatures reached into the 90s West High juniors Grace Wang and Sophia Singh began to feel the heat early in their regional semifinal on Wednesday.

After dropping the opening set of their semifinal match in the mid-day heat the West High doubles duo wasn’t feeling great about its tennis.

Or its rhythm or much of anything else.

“At the beginning of our second match we just weren’t feeling it,” Wang said.

Wang and Singh overcame the hot weather and the slow start to end the day with a much better feeling.

Singh and Wanger outlasted the second-seeded Clinton team of Maddie Rowden and Tenley Cewe 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals and secured a spot at the Class 2A state tournament with a runner-up finish at the Region 2 tournament at West High.

“We maybe didn’t feel it or didn’t believe in ourselves at the start but somehow we pushed through it and came out with the win,” Singh said. “It feels great.”

Seeded third, Wang and Singh opened regional play with a 6-3, 6-4 quarterfinal win over the Ottumwa tandem of Jordan Lee and Madalynn Sertterh.

Adversity hit early in the semifinal.

Clinton’s Rowden and Cewe won the opening set 6-3 which sent Singh and Wang searching for ways to get going.

“Even though we weren’t physically feeling it we were trying to verbalize it,” Singh said. “Saying that we were there and we had it we were actually able to execute it and we were able to turn it around.”

The West High tandem forced a third set with a 6-2 win in the second set.

Singh and Wang won the decisive third set 6-2 to claim the match that lasted well over two hours.

“We wanted to leave everything on the court,” Wang said. “We didn’t want to have any regrets.”

Singh and Wang fell to the top-seeded Pleasant Valley team of Kaj Kabongo and Grace Hall 6-0, 6-1 in the championship match but still earned a spot at the Class 2A state tournament October 1-2 at Byrnes Park in Waterloo.

“Neither of us have qualified for state and last year I went in singles and didn’t qualify and this is our first time doing doubles so we wanted to see how far we could go,” Singh said. “Obviously qualifying was the major goal.

Singh and Wang will be joined at state by sophomore Iris Vasi who secured a spot at the state meet with a runner-up finish in singles.

Vasi opened the season with eight consecutive losses playing number one singles for the Trojans and entered Wednesday’s Regional with a 3-13 record before securing her spot at state.

“It was a great experience especially with how the season went,” Vasi said. “Not having a super great season so qualifying for state is a great achievement for me.”

Vasi defeated Ava Moffett of Burlington 6-3, 6-0 and downed third-seeded Ellie Wright of Pleasant Valley 6-0, 6-0 in the semifinals.

She lost the title match to Elizabeth Grinnall of Clinton via injury default.

“Qualifying for state was kind of the goal but going into it I was just planning to try my best,” Vasi said. “Since it was a goal of mine it feels like a big achievement to me.”

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