Wolfpack, Braves tennis players still alive for State berth

GREAT FALLS — It’s the season of surviving and advancing in high school tennis as Glacier and Flathead battled at day one of the Northern AA divisional Thursday. 

After the early rounds completed, three Wolfpack singles, as well as three doubles pairs stayed alive for a divisional championship on Friday. One Flathead Brave joined the party also. 

Highlighting the day for the Wolfpack is the boys doubles, which sees three of the four pairings in the semifinals. Sam Engellant and Carl Bitney worked their way through the bottom of the bracket as the No. 2 seed with a straight-sets win in their only match of the day. 

In the semifinals, Bitney and Engellant take on fellow the Wolfpack pairing of Ethan Ronngren and Micah Klippenstein, who upset No. 3 seed Connor Sherman and Michael Waldenberg of CMR. Dalyn Mathison and Braydon Jenkinson also sit in the semifinals with a matchup with CMR’s Eli Crist and Brady Pike awaiting Friday. 

On the boys singles side, Glacier’s Creed Norick advanced to the semis with a three-set win over Lawrence Hoven from CMR. 

Flathead’s lone semifinalist, Holden Askvig, sits in the other semifinal after a 6-1, 6-0 win over Glacier’s Gavin Rodriguez. Askvig faces top seed Howard Daniel in the semis. 

Glacier sits tied atop the boys team standings with CMR at 25 points, with Flathead in third at eight and Great Falls in fourth at two. 

On the girls side, Glacier and CMR are also tied for first place with 22 points. Great Falls is third at eight with Flathead in fourth at six points. 

Leading the way into the semifinals are a pair of singles for the Wolfpack in Leilani Lennarz and Autumn Bashara. Lennarz dropped only one game on her way to two wins Thursday, while Bashara battled through a three-set thriller with Flathead’s Allie Goff. 

Neither school put a pairing into the girls doubles semifinals, though Flathead and Glacier have five pairings still alive on the consolation side of the bracket. 

Glacier boys pairing of Karson Stafford and AJ Zlogar stayed alive in the boys doubles consolation bracket to still have a chance at state. 

In boys singles Glacier’s Gavin Rodriguez and Flathead’s Rowan Alexander still have state dreams alive after round four. 

Glacier’s Lindsey Lemler moved on to Friday’s matches in the consolation bracket of the girls singles competition. 

The top four players or pairs from each tournament earn a spot in the state tournament in Bozeman on May 22-23.