The Creston/O-M tennis squads swept Clarinda in a pair of Hawkeye 10 duals Monday night.
The boys defeated the Cardinals, 7-2, and the girls won 6-3.
Two of the top three matches in singles were close ones, as Creston senior James Kunz beat Nathan Brown of Clarinda 11-10 (7-3) and Daniel Merritt, Creston’s No. 3 player, edged Clarinda junior Kale Downey 11-9. At No. 2 singles, Jeremy Rutz beat Lance Regher 10-3. At the fourth spot, Avery Fuller shutout Cyrus Lawrence, 10-0. Nate Wells and Foster McCutchan, both seniors, were winners by scores of 10-4 and 10-2, respectively.
The Panthers were 2-1 on the night in doubles with Kunz/Merritt winning 10-5 over REgher and Downey and Fuller/McCutchan winning at No. 3 doubles over Sant Dow and Conner Pullen of Clarinda.
“Getting a win on any night is a good feeling,” said Creston/O-M head coach Kevin Cooper of the boys score. “One of the differences was that in a few matches, we fell behind early, battled back and got those matches as wins for us.”
The Creston/O-M girls had wins in singles from Maddie Frey, Karly Calvin, Sam Dunphy, Halle Evans and Jess Eblen en route to a 5-1 lead going into doubles.
Frey/Calvin had the one Creston win in doubles play.
“Our girls had a good night. We are still struggling with some consistency issues and hope to correct those in the next few weeks,” Cooper said. “Maddie played a great match at the top of the lineup again. She has done a great job setting the tone for us this year.”