The Rochelle Hub varsity tennis team snapped its six-match winless streak on Saturday, defeating the Freeport Pretzels 6-3 in nonconference action. Sophomore David Wanner brought home three points for the Hubs, securing two singles wins over Freeport’s Caden Geiser (6-0, 6-1) as well as Rock Falls netter Dawson Newendyke 6-3, 7-5.
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ROCHELLE — The Rochelle Hub varsity tennis team snapped its six-match winless streak on Saturday, defeating the Freeport Pretzels 6-3 in nonconference action. Sophomore David Wanner brought home three points for the Hubs, securing two singles wins over Freeport’s Caden Geiser (6-0, 6-1) as well as Rock Falls netter Dawson Newendyke 6-3, 7-5.
“It feels good to break through and get our first win,” Wanner said. “We’re starting to figure ourselves out and we’re beginning to put together what we’ve learned over our first two weeks. My consistency was the key for me today. I kept the ball in play and waited for my opponents to make errors. Our mechanics will be important for us moving forward. I think our consistency is improving and our understanding of match flow is getting better as well.”
Rochelle and Freeport opened the match in doubles competition, with the Hubs taking a 2-1 lead heading into singles play. Wanner and sophomore Owen Haas downed Owen Helm and Nate Wilks 6-1, 6-2 at No. 2 doubles, while juniors Peter Forsberg and Alex Gilbert teamed up to defeat Ashey Kubly and Guillermo Alanis Barajas 6-1, 6-0 at No. 3 doubles. Juniors Jason Zheng and Devansh Patel battled at No. 1 doubles, falling 3-6, 2-6 to Geiser and John Helms.
“I thought we all did really well today,” Forsberg said. “We’ve come a long way from our first few matches and I thought we won a lot of games today. Practice and consistency will be our focuses moving forward and we’ll going to work on getting all of our ground strokes over.”
Haas dominated Alanis Barajas in singles, sweeping him 6-0, 6-0 on the No. 6 court to give Rochelle a 3-1 lead. Forsberg took the No. 5 singles match 6-1, 6-0 over Kubly before Zheng fell 2-6, 1-6 against Helm at No. 2 singles. With Rochelle leading 4-2, Wanner secured the team victory for the Hubs with his singles win over Geiser. Patel scored Rochelle’s final point of the match, outlasting Wilks 6-2, 6-4 at the No. 4 court. The Hubs are now 1-6 on the season.
“We’ve been working hard in practice so we deserve this win,” Haas said. “Our chemistry in doubles will be important for us and we’re learning how to work with each other as opposed to playing by ourselves. My serves were on point today and that made everything easier for me.”
The final match concluded on the No. 3 singles court, with Gilbert falling 1-6, 5-7 to Helms.
