7 Glacier netters hope things go magnificently

May 22—Seven Glacier tennis players and one Flathead Brave all have the same idea in mind: bring home some hardware.

To do that they will need to defeat Montana’s best tennis players at the state tournament in Bozeman that gets underway today.

For the Wolfpack the hopes are spread across all four competitions with two girls and one boys singles players, along with a doubles pairing on both sides.

“It’s great to have the diversity in our lineup,” Glacier coach Josh Munro said. “It gives a lot of opportunity for the team as we aren’t fighting for the same title, but we would always like to have more.”

And they were close to having more as three boys doubles teams ended up in the semifinals at the Northern AA divisional last weekend. Of the three, only Sam Engellant and Carl Bitney make the trip to Bozeman.

“Overall, we played very well, especially in the doubles side,” Munro said of the divisional. “We have three more teams within a set of making it into state, but we had a couple of unfortunate setbacks.”

Engellant and Bitney each played doubles at the 2024 tournament, though not as a pairing. Engellant also went in 2023 as a singles qualifier. Sophomore Leilani Lennarz also makes a repeat appearance after earning her way to state last year.

There is also a bit of fresh blood for Glacier with Creed Norick and Autumn Bashara in singles and the girls pairing of Reid Sanders and Quinn Berkram who make their first appearances.

Munro says the run-up in practice is the same it has been all year.

“For the most part it’s trying to get better against the teams that crash the net and working on shot tolerance and being willing to stay in longer rallies,” Munro said. “We are looking forward to a good weekend, and hoping that we can avoid the rain, then we leave it all on the court and see what we can do.”

As for the Braves, just one qualifier makes his way to Bozeman: Holden Askvig.

Askvig earned his spot with a victory over teammate Rowan Alexander in the consolation bracket at the divisional last week, Alexander missed out on state as a result. It’s his first state appearance, and he’ll face the top seed out of the East in Billings West’s Ty Graham.