HURON – The Aberdeen Central boys’ tennis team split a pair of Eastern South Dakota Conference matches Thursday afternoon and is feeling pretty happy with it.

The Golden Eagles dropped a tight 5-4 decision to Mitchell before rebounding with an 8-1 victory over Huron.

“Feeling really good,” said Central coach Trent Kurtz following the matches. “Going in we thought this would be a good test to see where we’re at ESD-wise. Mitchell, year in and year out, is one of the best teams and we were right there with them. Then Huron has a lot of young talent. They lack a little in experience right now, but a lot of talent, so really good win against Huron and we played a really good match against Mitchell.”

Kurtz pointed out his squad’s doubles play as a key factor in the day’s success. Central swept all three doubles matches in the win over Huron after picking off two out of three against Mitchell.

“Mitchell’s doubles are always really good. Their coach even made a comment afterwards where they very seldom lose two out of three doubles, so taking two out of three doubles against them and to take all three against Huron, I’m really impressed with how our doubles played.”

Leading the way in that category was Central’s top-flight duo of AJ Prehn and Gustavo Carrara, who fought back for a come-from-behind style victory against Mitchell before fending off Huron later in the day.

“Happy with how they played, especially with big points down the stretch,” Kurtz said. “It’s good to see those guys play well.”

Carrara, for his part, put together a 4-0 day, pairing two singles wins with his doubles victories, though he was far from alone in his efforts.

“We had a lot of close matches,” Kurtz said. “We lost a tiebreak where we had some match points. That would have been a nice one to have. Then we won a tiebreak where we saved some match points.”

Central will now head to Pierre next Thursday, but Kurtz said his team will head into next week on an upward trajectory.

“Gives us a little momentum, a little confidence here,” he said. “I think we had some guys that were maybe lacking a little confidence. We’ve played just a brutal schedule. We played the heavy hitters in the state, all the top contenders. So some of our individual win-loss records aren’t as good as where we were hoping coming into the year, but a lot of that is we’ve played really good opponents. We got a lot of wins today, 12 wins, so we get a lot of confidence going for these guys and now hopefully they kind of take off and start putting some wins together.”

Mitchell 5, Aberdeen 4

SINGLES

Matthew Mauszycki, M, def. AJ Prehn, 9-9, (8-6).

Luke Jerke, M, def. Mason Ligon, 10-2.

Asher Dannenbring, M, def. Dawson Pederson, 10-8.

Gustavo Carrara, AC, def. Cooper Star, 10-5.

Aric Tennant, AC, def. Dawson Adams, 10-7.

Sutton Thompson, M, def. Gannon Pederson, 10-0.

Doubles

Prehn-Carrara, AC, def. Jerke-Mauszycki, 10-9 (8-6).

D. Pederson-Ligon, AC, def. Thompson-Star, 10-8.

Adams-Dannenbring, M, def. Tennant-Mika Dannen, 10-4.

Aberdeen Central 8, Huron 1

Singles

AJ Prehn, AC, def. Matthew Thin, 10-2.

Mason Ligon, AC, def. Say Poe, 10-7.

Dawson Pederson, AC, def. Htoo Zan, 10-5.

Gustavo Carrara, AC, def. Maner Htoo, 10-4.

Lev Hai Moo, H, def. Aric Tennant, 10-4.

Gannon Pederson, AC, def. Aung Myit, 10-7.

Doubles

Prehn-Carrara, AC, def. Thin-Htoo, 10-8.

D. Pederson-Ligon, AC, def. Poe-Zan, 10-6.

Tennant-Mika Dannen, AC, def. Moo-Ywa Hae Moo, 10-7.