Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

WATERLOO – Grace Wang and Elsie Gross came to the state tennis tournament confident they could compete with any doubles team in the state.

The West High doubles tandem proved themselves right on Wednesday.

Gross and Wang advanced to the state semifinals with a 6-4, 6-4 upset of the second-seeded and defending 2A runner-up Johnston squad in the second round of the Class 2A state tournament at Byrnes Park in Waterloo.

“We came in knowing we could do it the entire time,” Gross said. “We knew how badly we wanted it and we knew we could do it.”

The second-round win over the Johnston squad of Brianna Launderville and Zoey Studer capped an impressive 2-0 opening day at the two-day state tournament for Gross and Wang.

The West High squad opened the day with a 6-2, 6-4 win over the West Des Moines Dowling tandem of Victoria Valverde and Jessi Johnson in the opening round.

Wang and Gross will face the Pleasant Valley team of Grace Hall and Kaj Kabongo in the semifinals on Thursday at 10 a.m.

“It really just shows that we belong,” Gross said. “We have that mentality that we are right there with all these teams.”

It took a little tinkering for first-year West High head coach Marshal Moellers to settle on his doubles teams at the start of the season.

Once Moellers put together the pair of Wang and Gross he immediately knew he had found the correct combination.

“We were talking before the season about potential doubles combinations and things and the first few meets we didn’t have those two together,” Moellers explained. “We were trying different combinations in my first year as coach and I knew as soon as I put them together that it was the team I wanted for my number one doubles.”

Wang and Gross showed why they make a special combination in their second-round upset.

The duo trailed 2-1 early in the opening set but won eight of the next nine games winning the opening set 6-3 and taking a 3-0 lead in the second set.

“That’s just how we play, we play together,” Wang said. “All our hard work and everything we do is for this moment. This is our last season together so it’s special.”

Facing the early deficit the West High tandem didn’t change.

Gross and Wang simply went to work in finding the rhythm that had helped get them to the state tournament.

“We just needed to fall into a rhythm and we knew the second we did that we’d be fine,” Gross said. “It was just getting our bearings a little bit especially against a team like this, where they are just so good and solid that we knew we had to get in it and the second we fell into a rhythm it stayed.”

Last year’s 2A runner-up in doubles, Launderville and Studer rallied in the second set.

The Johnston duo pulled even at 4-4 but West High had the answer.

“We knew we were going to lose games against this team, we didn’t change anything we were doing it was just some points didn’t go our way and we knew that was going to happen against a great team,” Gross said. “It didn’t matter that we were losing games because it was expected, there is no way we were going to crush a team like this, so we were still confident.”

Gross and Wang won the final two sets to secure the win and will now face a Pleasant Valley team making it’s second consecutive state semifinal appearance.

The Pleasant Valley team of Hall and Kabongo finished fourth a year ago.

“I knew we could do it,” Wang said. “It was just a constant belief in ourselves.”

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