Denison-Schleswig Monarchs Tennis - Boys
/Monarch boys fall to strong Sioux City East tennis team
Braden Curnyn hits a backhand during a doubles match against Sioux City East. He and his partner, Blaine Brodsky, won their match. Photo by Rhonda Rauch
The Denison-Schleswig Monarch boys fell 8-1 in a home meet against Sioux City East on Tuesday.
The doubles team of Blaine Brodsky and Braden Curnyn won the only match for the Monarchs.
“It was a rough outcome today. It is obvious that we need to spend more time practicing net play, overheads and groundstrokes,” said Head Coach Aaron Ratliff. “This Sioux City East team is young and will be a powerhouse for the next two years.”
Highlights
Blaine Brodsky and Braden Curnyn overcame disappointing singles losses to control their doubles match in an 8-5 win. The experience playing with each other in last Saturday’s Boone Tournament really helped their doubles play.
Some JV players that showed flashes on Tuesday. Owen Galvin won both his singles match and doubles match with Jayden Bradley. Grant Fink was also dominant in his 6-0 singles win and 6-0 doubles win with Ethan Olsen.
Both Grant Olsen’s and Ethan Olsen’s powerful serves were on. Ethan won his singles match with a 7-0 tiebreaker win.
The Monarch boys host Sioux City Heelan today (April 11) at 4 p.m. They travel to Shenandoah on Friday for a 4:30 p.m. meet, and on Saturday the Monarchs will compete in the Shenandoah J.V. tournament, beginning at 9 a.m.
Monarch boys win 9-0 in first tennis meet
The Denison-Schleswig Monarch boys took a 9-0 win from Harlan in the first tennis meet of the year on April 4.
“Harlan took a big hit from graduation last year, losing their top five players,” said Head Coach Aaron Ratliff. “With losing four players ourselves, this was a good first outing for our inexperienced squad. Hopefully we can continue to improve throughout the season. I particularly liked our dominant doubles play.”
Highlights
• Braden Curnyn’s forehands kept improving throughout the match. By the end of the doubles matches, they were almost unstoppable.
• Blaine Brodsky’s serve was dominant in singles play. When it is on, its power is hard to deal with.
• Hunter Pieper put his volleys away with authority, while his partner Omar Abarca kept his opponents at bay with solid groundstrokes.
• It was terrific to see the JV pitch a shutout today. It signals good things for future seasons.
Singles match scores
#1 Braden Curnyn, 8-2
#2 Blaine Brodsky, 8-0
#3 Omar Abarca, 8-4
#4 Hunter Pieper, 8-0
#5 Danny Saldana, 8-1
#6 Adonay Arellano, 8-1
Doubles match scores
#1 Brodsky and Curnyn, 8-0
#2 Abarca and Pieper, 8-1
#3 Arellano and Saldana, 8-0
The J.V. team took a 10-0 win over Harlan.
Monarch boys fall to St. Albert in tennis
The Denison-Schleswig boys tennis team dropped a match to St. Albert, 7-2, on Friday, April 5.
“St. Albert has a young talented squad this year that is particularly strong up top,” said Head Coach Aaron Ratliff. “We had some matches that could have turned our way, and I look forward to measuring our growth through the season by seeing how we compete against this same team at the conference tournament.”
He said highlights for the Monarchs were Blaine Brodsky playing well in a back and forth singles match against a strong Cole Pekny at No. 2. Brodsky ended up falling just short in an 8-10 loss. Another highlight was Danny Saldana winning both his singles and doubles matches.
“He has improved quite a bit from last season,” said Ratliff.
Saldana’s doubles partner was Adonay Arellano.
D-S boys take fourth and fifth places at Boone Tennis Invitational
The Denison-Schleswig boys’ varsity placed fourth in the Boone Tennis Invitational and the J.V. boys placed fifth on Saturday, April 6.
Ames, Dallas Center-Grimes, North Polk and South Tama were the other teams that competed in the invitational.
The Monarch varsity scored 123 points to net fourth place. The J.V. team scored 69 points.
Boone won the varsity and J.V. divisions.
This was the third year for Denison-Schleswig to compete at the Boone Invitational.
Head Coach Aaron Ratliff said the tournament format is designed to test the depth of a squad; players had to choose whether to play singles or doubles.
The varsity division featured three flights of singles and three flights of doubles. The J.V. division had two flights of singles and two flights of doubles.
“I placed our six best players in doubles competition, which meant that in the (varsity) singles, our top three J.V. players were usually facing the other teams’ varsity players,” said Ratliff. “It was a rough outing but they did pull our two wins.”
In the varsity division, the doubles teams of Blaine Brodsky and Braden Curnyn, and Adonay Arellano and Danny Saldana pulled out impressive wins over Ames to both place third.
In the J.V. tournament, Grant Fink had an impressive day going 4-1 and just barely missing out on a second-place finish.
Results
Owen Galvin went 0-5 in the #1 varsity singles flight, 6th place
Jorge Zuniga went 1-4 in the #2 varsity singles flight, 5th place
Jayden Bradley went 2-3 in the #3 varsity singles flight, 4th place
Grant Fink went 4-1 in the # 2 J.V. singles flight, 3rd place
Blaine Brodsky and Braden Curnyn went 3-2 in the #1 varsity doubles flight, 3rd place
Omar Abarca and Hunter Pieper went 2-3 in the #2 varsity doubles flight, 4th place
Adonay Arellano and Danny Saldana went 3-2 in the #3 varsity doubles flight, 3rd place
Grant Olsen and John Parr went 1-4 in the #1 J.V. doubles flight, 5th place
Cedar Cardona Jr. and Tyson Stoppel went 0-5 in the #2 J.D. doubles flight, 6th place
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