Minot High’s Grace Olson prepares to return a shot against Minot North’s Julia Stoner during their match on Wednesday, April 15, at Hammond Park. Olson won the match, 6-1, 7-5. Mike Kraft/MDN

As the Minot North girls tennis team continues to gain experience as it builds toward its goal of being in the upper echelon of the West Region on a consistent basis, the Minot High program continues to be the cream of the crop in both the WDA and the state.

That was on full display at Hammond Park when the two programs shared the court on Wednesday, April 15, in a WDA match.

The Majettes opened their conference slate with a 9-0 sweep of Minot North, winning all nine matches in straight sets. Minot High has won three of its first four matches of the season via sweeps.

“Every day we’re getting closer and I think over the next month we’re going to continue to get better every day,” Minot High coach Scott DeLorme said. “We have some girls who have played a lot of tennis this winter, but we still have some girls who played other sports and they didn’t touch a tennis racket a whole lot this winter and those are the ones you really see a jump from now until the middle of May. They are in other activities, which we’ll always be a supporter of.”

Wednesday’s match was originally scheduled for Friday, April 17, but was pushed up two days because of the impending weather conditions. Friday’s forecast called for it to be about 30 degrees colder than Wednesday’s high of 66 degrees.

The schedule change meant that both teams were playing their fourth match in three days. While Minot North was in town for all three of its previous matches, Minot High was in Williston the prior day, meaning a 250-mile round trip bus ride. But fatigue wasn’t on the minds of neither the Majettes nor the Sentinels, but rather the wind, which turned out to be a bigger factor than previously thought when making the schedule change.

“It was definitely windier than we anticipated when we moved it to today, which is OK,” DeLorme said. “The one thing it definitely brings out is you have to move your feet. Even the slow balls or the balls you might consider easier as a player can take a last-second turn, so footwork was crucial today, which is good for us because when we’ve talked with our girls through our first three matches they keep saying that their footwork needs to improve. Today was a day where they really had to make that adjustment.”

The Majettes (4-0 overall, 1-0 WDA) overcame both the wind and the Sentinels. Ava Thuner picked up her team-best fourth singles victory of the season, defeating Kate Weishaar without dropping a game. McKenna Odahlen and Alivia Sherven each only dropped one game apiece in their singles victories. Odahlen topped Braxtyn Bennett, 6-0, 6-1, and Sherven bested Alyviah Kopp, 6-1, 6-0.

“Playing with confidence is a little harder knowing we’re going up against Minot High – a very, very good team,” Minot North coach Gwen Erickson said. “It’s also different weather conditions with it being very windy today. Playing against a team this good is extremely hard. It’s hard to keep in the match, but I think some of our girls did a good job of doing that.”

Kyllie Fettig and Ella Sherven collected identical 6-2, 6-2 victories against Addy Clark and Emersyn Kopp, respectively.

The most competitive match of the afternoon came at No. 3 singles between Minot High’s Grace Olson and Minot North’s Julia Stoner. Both were looking for their third singles victory of the year and it appeared early that Olson would cruise after winning the opening set 6-1. But Stoner opened the second set strong, jumping out to a 4-1 lead. Olson regrouped and made the necessary adjustments to get back into the match and eventually grab the victory 7-5.

‘With it being windy out, you just had to move your feet and be aggressive when you had the chance to, but it was a great match,” Olson said. “With being outside, we’ve been working on what it’s like hitting outside with the wind. It’s so different from being inside when the ball is consistent every time.”

DeLorme praised Olson’s ability to battle back in the second set as opposed to conceding and allowing the match to go to a third set.

“She’s a senior who has played in big-time matches,” DeLorme said. “She’s played in state tournaments and state championship matches. Nothing phases her. Down 1-4, other girls might look at the scoreboard and think that they’ll just win this in the third set, but her mentality is that she’ll change her style and that’s exactly what she did. She made some adjustments to get a little more aggressive against her opponent and all the sudden she rattled off two or three games and was back in control and closed it out.”

Stoner won six games total during her match, the most of any singles player or doubles pairing for the Sentinels. Despite being on the wrong end of the scoreboard, Erickson was proud of Stoner’s effort.

“She for sure held her own and almost got to that third set, which was awesome,” Erickson said. “She is a competitor and that is something that is so important out on the court. We’re really happy to have her on our team.”

With the result already in hand heading into doubles play, the Majettes swept the final three matches, again not dropping a set. Olson and Thuner defeated Clark and Weishaar, 6-2, 6-2, at No. 1 doubles. It was the first time this season Olson and Thuner have been paired together.

Fettig and Ella Sherven posted a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Bennett and Emersyn Kopp at No. 2 doubles, and Odahlen and Alivia Sherven closed the match out with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Stoner and Alyviah Kopp.

Wednesday’s result was the first time this season the Sentinels (1-3, 0-2) have been swept, but Erickson said her team won’t be deterred by the loss.

“Our season motto is that we’re just going to get better every single time we step on the court, so we told our girls that same thing today that you’re going to win points and you’re going to win games,” Erickson said. “We’re going to talk a lot about our own performance, not necessarily what we did against them. What are some things we can do better and some takeaways with not just that we lost but there were some good things we saw today.”

Minot High has swept Minot North in all three meetings between the two programs. While the scores may be the same, DeLorme said he can see the growth in the Minot North program.

“They are much improved,” DeLorme said. “It was just a matter of time. They have good players here. When the two schools split, we knew this crew was coming. They were young the last few years and were inexperienced. They’ve put the time in. We’ve seen them at Cameron Indoor. Anytime we had an event, they followed us in. Their program is in good shape and they are going to be battling for a state tournament spot, which in Year 3 is a pretty cool accomplishment for them, so hopefully they can do that.”

Minot High will play its fifth match in four days when it hosts Bismarck High on Thursday, April 16, at Cameron Indoor Tennis Center at 3:30 p.m. Minot North gets a bit of a break before heading to Williston on Tuesday, April 21, for a 4 p.m. match with the Coyotes.