A-P boys tennis advances to team substate

WATERLOO – The Aplington-Parkersburg boys tennis team placed second at a district tennis meet at Byrnes Park Tennis Center on Wednesday afternoon to advance to the preliminary round of the substate team tennis tournament.

The Falcons will host Grundy Center in Aplington at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 12. The winner will advance to a substate event at Dubuque Wahlert.

"Our kids are happy to have the opportunity to play another match," A-P head coach Jon Wiegmann said. "...[W]e got so much better as the season went on and that's what you want to see."

A-P finished tied with Grundy Center with 12 advancement points from Wednesday but won a tiebreaker by virtue of Jacob Abbas and Aaron Price's victory in the third-place doubles match against teammates Carter Cuvelier and Alec Oberhauser.

But it was a pair of comeback 3-set victories by Cuvelier and Oberhauser – first against Decorah's Joe Holland and Nate Larson and then in the second round against Grundy Center's Garret Weldon and Landon Graham – that helped push A-P over the top.

Weldon and Graham led 5-2 in the third set before the A-P duo stormed back, sweeping the third-set tiebreak for the win.

"That's a great comeback," Wiegmann said. "They found a way to win and that's what we needed to do."

Price and Abbas reached the district semis after receiving a bye in the first round and rallying for a three-set victory over Dom Robertson and Zach Wegner of Oelwein in the second round.

Grundy Center will be a tough preliminary substate opponent. The Spartans defeated A-P 6-3 in a dual in Aplington on May 3.

"We're going to have to play a lot sharper," Wiegmann said. "We were playing well today and hopefully that confidence and momentum carries over."

In singles play, A-P's Collin Johnson lost a first-round match to Waverly-Shell Rock's Trey Angel, 6-0, 6-0. Third-seeded Rhett Peters of Union defeated A-P's Riley Oberhauser, 6-0, 6-0, in a first-round match. Peters went on to finish as district runner-up, qualifying for the state singles and doubles tournament.

PHOTO GALLERY: A-P boys district tennis