PIERRE – Aberdeen Central took Friday’s success on the tennis court and applied it to Saturday’s matches at the West River Invitational, defeating Rapid City Central 9-0, while taking down Rapid City Christian 7-2.

Golden Eagles coach John Vogel was excited with how his team performed against the quality competition.

“I’m extremely pleased with how we did today, and it’s mainly just from the Christian match,” Vogel said. “I thought we rose to the occasion, and to play Rapid City Christian, who is a good team, I thought our girls met that challenge really good.”

Central began the day blanking Rapid City Central, dropping just one total game against the Cobblers.

While Vogel was happy with the team’s performance, he became concerned with an issue in between matches.

“We got done with (Rapid City Central) really quick,” Vogel said. “But the problem is we got done so fast, we had a lot of down time before we played again. I was very worried about that. It was hot today in Pierre. It just baked outside for like 10 hours, so I was a little worried.”

Those worries were put to rest when the Golden Eagles won five flights of singles and a pair of doubles flights to record the dual win over Rapid City Christian.

Vogel was pleased with how his team performed, especially in the singles flights.

“I was really impressed with Julia Knie in flight one with how she handled (Riley Geyer),” Vogel said. “She played outstanding in that match. That’s a good player there and Julia I think had her first really good quality flight one victory there. So proud of her.”

Vogel pointed out the efforts of other players as well.

“Laney (Gonsor) played great for us. (She) had a great weekend,” Vogel said. “Reese Comstock, she struggled all weekend. She has a really bad head cold, but in that match against Central, she got her groove back, and I think we’re going to see the real Reese the rest of the way here. And then Liv Douglas, another senior on our team, she played fantastic against Christian. It was really good to see.”

While he was excited about the weekend, Vogel knows there is more work to do before the next matches, including working on the fundamentals.

“We’re going to take a break. We have a lot of challenge matches, and I told them we’re going to take a couple of days off from that and we’re just going to do some drills,” Vogel said. “Even though I’m super proud of how we played, we have a long list of things to work on, and we’re going to get to work the next couple days of practice instead of focusing so much on challenge matches.”

Vogel said the team needs to clean up some simple things before heading to Sioux Falls for more matches this weekend.

“We just made too many silly mistakes, unforced errors in tennis tournaments,” Vogel said. “So, we’re just going to do some simple little drills just to get some rhythm down and consistency. We gave away too many free points.”

Aberdeen Central 9, Rapid City Central 0

Singles

Julia Knie, AC, def. Angela Limon, 10-0.

Avery Tennant, AC, def. Chenoa Wright, 10-0.

Laney Gonsor, AC, def. Kili Cole, 10-1.

Reese Comstock, AC, Kirsten Steinbeck, 10-0.

Livia Douglas, AC, won by default.

Riley O’Keefe, AC, won by default.

Doubles

Knie-Tennant, AC, def. Limon-Wright, 10-0.

Comstock-Douglas, AC, def. Cole-Steinbeck, 10-0.

Gonsor-O’Keefe, AC, won by default.

Aberdeen Central 7, Rapid City Christian 2

Singles

Julia Knie, AC, def. Riley Geyer, 10-2.

Allison Hill, RCC, def. Avery Tennant, 10-3.

Laney Gonsor, AC, def. Katie Palmer, 10-6.

Reese Comstock, AC, def. Monica Whitman, 10-7.

Livia Douglas, AC, def. Evie Biers, 10-3.

Riley O’Keefe, AC, Addie Palmer, 10-2.

Doubles

Knie-Tennant, AC, def. Hill-K. Palmer, 10-5.

Geyer-Whitman, RCC, def. Comstock-Douglas, 10-3.

Gonsor-Olivia Geier, AC, def. Biers-A. Palmer, 10-6.