Minot High’s McKenna Odahlen returns a shot during her singles match against Williston’s Stella Jorgensen on Monday, May 4, at Cameron Courts. Odahlen cruised to a 6-0, 6-0 victory. Mike Kraft/MDN

It was smooth sailing for McKenna Odahlen during both her singles and doubles matches against Williston on Monday, May 4.

Everything was working for the Minot High sophomore, whether it was her forehand, backhand, service game, shots from the baseline or aggressiveness at the net. That translated to a pair of decisive match victories, including a 6-0, 6-0 win at No. 5 singles over Stella Jorgenson as part of Minot High’s 9-0 triumph over the Coyotes at Cameron Courts.

Odahlen began her day paired with Alivia Sherven at No. 3 doubles, posting a 6-0, 6-1 victory against Massa Kpan and Freyja Thomas.

“McKenna has had a heck of a year,” Minot High coach Scott DeLorme said. “We knew coming in that she plays No. 5 for us, but we say this about our Nos. 4, 5 and 6 all the time that they’re Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on the majority of teams. McKenna is just a really good athlete. She’s got a great personality. She’s exactly what you need on a team like this where you have a lot of really good players. She’s willing to play No. 5 singles and not complain about it. She’s happy to be there. When she takes the court, whether it’s in singles or doubles, she’s such a competitor. You know exactly what you’re going to get. She’s a hard worker and she’s going to give you everything it takes and we have big expectations for McKenna for the next two years of her career.”

Odahlen didn’t play a singles match the last time the Majettes (11-0 overall, 6-0 WDA) and Coyotes met back on April 14, but did match up against Aslyn Engh at No. 3 singles in their first meeting the day prior. She won that match, 6-1, 6-0. Odahlen saw a new face on Monday with Jorgensen, but the results were nearly identical.

“It’s good to play some new people in different matches just to see different playing styles, but it was a good match,” Odahlen said. “Today I definitely had to focus on the fundamentals and the basics of hitting a tennis ball and moving my feet a lot.”

Odahlen was in control of the match from the start, and rarely conceded a point to Jorgenson. As a result, Odahlen improved to 8-1 in singles play this season.

“My serving game was pretty good,” Odahlen said. “I made sure to get my second serves in and I kept moving her around and pushing her deep in some short shots and that was working for me.”

Ella Sherven and Alivia Sherven also didn’t face much adversity during their singles and doubles matches. Ella Sherven posted a 6-1, 6-0 victory at No. 4 singles against Engh and teamed up with Kyllie Fettig at No. 2 doubles for a 6-1, 6-0 win over Engh and Frances Mansibang. After her doubles win with Odahlen, Alivia Sherven dispatched Freyja Thomas, 6-2, 6-3, at No. 6 singles.

Ava Thuner and Grace Olson had to dig deep for their doubles victory, and so did Fettig during her singles match. Both involved Williston’s top player Avy Ator, who entered the match 7-1 in singles play and 4-2 in doubles

Ator and Tinklenberg took the opening set from Olson and Thuner at No. 1 doubles, capitalizing on a number of unforced errors by Minot High’s top doubles team. The Williston pair held a 4-3 lead in the second set before Olson and Thuner won the next two games to take the lead. The set would ultimately require a tiebreaker, which Minot High claimed 7-4 to force a decisive third set.

“The first set, it was slow,” Olson said. “A lot of errors on our end. It was just cleaning up those errors and being aggressive at the net. After the tiebreaker, we decided to put on the gas and just keep going and being aggressive and closing out points.”

With momentum on their side, Olson and Thuner took the third set with relative ease to post the 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-1 victory and move to 5-0 as a pair this season.

“Avy Ator is a really good player,” DeLorme said. “To her credit, she kept that doubles team in that one against Grace and Ava, but ultimately when they found a way to get through that second set, which wasn’t the prettiest, that third set was more of what we’ve seen from those two: aggressive net play, going after balls and attacking balls. It went three sets, but it was good for those two to see that experience.”

Thuner said the match flipped in their favor when they started being more aggressive at the net, which she viewed as her and Olson’s biggest strength as doubles partners.

“We wanted to play aggressively,” Thuner said. “We can both do really well at the net and we both just have skills across the board so we knew we could tackle whatever came at us. We haven’t had to deal with that kind of competition yet, so it was a good test for us for sure.”

Thuner and Olson didn’t have to sweat out their singles matches, as Thuner topped Tinklenberg, 6-1, 6-1, and Olson bested Mansibang, 6-0, 6-0.

The competitive singles match of the day was at No. 1 between Fettig and Ator. Coming off her first loss of the season to West Fargo Sheyenne’s Sarea Gu, Fettig dropped her opening set to Ator and was in danger of losing a second consecutive match. But the senior found her form in the second set to force a third. With the results of the overall match already decided, the teams elected to play a super set – first player to 10 points, winning by two – over a traditional third set. Fettig came out on top in the super set for the 2-6, 6-1, 10-7 win.

“We’re not going to roll through teams 6-0, 6-1 at the West Region and state tournament,” DeLorme said. “That’s just not how that works winning in that setting. Having the chance to play these matches two or three weeks before those tournaments, that is a huge bonus. Sure you want to win big and you want to win quick, but to know that you’ve been in that situation where you drop a set, come back from a set down and win the thing in three sets, to know that you’ve done it, to have gone through it in a fairly recent fashion this close to tournament time, it’s beneficial for all those girls.”

Despite having played Williston (0-9-1, 0-6) twice already this season and sweeping them both times, DeLorme wasn’t worried about his team taking the Coyotes for granted during their third meeting despite the polar opposite records. Having a veteran roster helps to avoid any complacency.

“That’s part of it,” DeLorme said. “It’s easy to do when you see a team a third time and the first two fortunately for us weren’t the most competitive matches, but they also knew this was the conference match and this was the counter. When you have a crew that has been around for as long as some of the girls have, we knew they were going to be ready.”

Minot High travels to play Bismarck St. Mary’s for a 4 p.m. match on Thursday, May 7.