Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

WATERLOO – Last season was a huge first step for the Liberty High tennis program

The Lightning had a pair of singles entries at the Class 2A state tournament a year ago with Vivian Kahler claiming a state medal with a seventh-place finish.

This fall the Lightning have taken yet another huge step forward and that continued with a strong opening day at the Class 2A state tournament on Wednesday at the Byrnes Park Tennis Center in Waterloo.

“I think last year it was just getting the foot in the door and now it’s trying to set the standard and figure out what it takes to compete at this level,” Liberty High coach Jake Binggeli said. “I’m super proud of how our girls have done that.”

For the second consecutive season the Lightning had a pair of state tournament entries as Kahler returned to the singles field and was joined by the doubles tandem of Regan Christoph and Regan Christoph.

Christoph and Blythe Kahler had a strong opening day at the state meet bouncing back from a quarterfinal loss with a consolation win to advance to Thursday’s second day of action.

Kahler, a freshman and Christop an eighth-grader defeated the Cedar Falls team of Indre Jankunas and Ayla Suiter 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round.

“They’ve played a lot of high-level tennis growing up just at the youth circuits so they aren’t shying away from this level of competition they have kind of been here before just not in this particular environment,” Binggeli said. “They dropped their first game of the day and I was like ‘o.k. now your feet are wet lets get this going’ and they have played really well the rest of the day.

In the quarterfinals Christop and Kahler fell to the top-seeded Waukee Northwest tandem of Riley Hilton and Alexa Perugini 6-1, 6-1.

The Liberty High squad rebounded to knock off Tayven Carter and London Kelley of West Des Moines Valley 6-0, 6-3 in the consolation to advance to Thursday.

“Even against that top side I thought they did some things really well,” Binggeli said. “We have an eighth grader and a ninth grader and they hadn’t seen that level of play before and it was fun to watch them play at that level.”

Vivian Kahler went 1-2 on Wednesday in singles play.

Kahler lost to Madelyn Jepsen of North Scott 6-2, 7-5 in the opening round and defeated Minka Negley of Urbandale 6-2, 6-2 in a first-round consolation match.

Kahler fell to Chahana Katreddy of Pleasant Valley 6-3, 6-3 in her second consolation match.

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