STAR JOURNAL REPORT

Only the top-two singles players dropped a set when the Rhinelander High School girls tennis team won all its matches in Tuesday’s Great Northern Conference dual meet at Lakeland Union High School.

“Going in we were confident we would win the match, but the score would be important because Antigo had beaten them 6-1,” said Hodags head coach Bob Heideman. “In five of the matches we took care of business. The other two were a struggle.”

The Hodags’ Alex Oestreich hits a return shot in Tuesday’s No. 2 singles match against the Thunderbirds’ Morgan Ahrens.

In No. 2 singles, RHS’s Alex Oestreich dropped the first set to LUHS’s Morgan Ahrens, 7-5, before winning the match by dominating the final two sets, 6-0, 6-2.

“Alex lost to Morgan three times last year, so there was plenty of motivation there,” Heideman said. “Early in the match Alex was giving away too many points, although she did a good job of staying in the set. Once she kept some more balls in play, it started to have a positive effect. She had a good mixture of safe balls and hitting out shots.”

The No. 1 singles match featured the Hodags’ Belinda Weddle losing the first set to the Thunderbirds’ Riley Curtis, 6-2, and then winning the match by taking the next two sets, 6-3, 6-0.

“I was very surprised at how quickly Belinda got down in the first set,” Heideman said. “Riley did a good job of blunting Belinda’s pace. But as the match wore on Belinda started to move her from side to side and that eventually caused Riley some problems.”

RHS dominated the other five matches by winning them all in straight sets while dropping either one or none of the games in each set.

With the meet win, the Hodags improved their season record to 5-0 in the GNC and 10-3 overall going into Thursday’s home conference dual meet against Antigo.