Strand secures state tennis medal | News, Sports, Jobs

After an hour-long tournament with temperatures nearing 90 degrees and the sun beating down at the University of Iowa Tennis Complex, the Marshalltown senior was down in the first set of his win-or-go-home consolation match with Iowa City High’s. Abhay Anil.

Heat cramps. Drying out.

Whatever Strand lacked physically at that moment, he had to find mentally.

“I realized this was my last chance,” Strand said. “This is what I’ve worked for, like my whole life. When I’m 40, I can’t say it was good because I didn’t have the energy.

TR PHOTO: JAKE RYDER – Marshalltowns Gavin Jablonski hits a volley during the Class 2A state doubles Tuesday in Iowa City. Jablonski and teammate Nile Christensen went 1-2 and were eliminated.

On the brink of elimination, Strand instead picked himself up to win the second set 6-2 and then beat Anil in a 10-point super tiebreak 10-6 to ensure he would finish with a Top 8 medal. round robin matches begin Wednesday morning to conclude the Class 2A state singles and doubles tournament.

He will face Fort Dodge’s Micah Flaherty in the consolation semifinals. The winner of the match will play for fifth place later in the day, the loser for seventh.

Strand is following in the footsteps of his older brother Kevin, who was on hand Tuesday to offer his support. Marshalltown head coach James Christensen even joked that Jason has a chance to beat his older brother, who earned a seventh-place finish in singles last year.

It wasn’t just Strand that was affected by the high temperatures, and it felt like the match with Anil was a nail-biter to see who could capitalize on the other’s cramping first.

“I tried to get him running, hit his backhand and change the pace a little bit,” Strand said. “And that’s probably when he started to get worse.”

The crowd in the yard was also largely pro-Bobcat, which Strand said helped quite a bit.

“They cheered after every point and gave me the energy I needed to come back,” Strand said.

The morning started with a 6-2, 6-1 win against Bettendorf’s Noah Gehler. That paired Strand with fourth-seeded Anthony Schulte of Cedar Rapids Prairie, a dynamic player who handed Strand his first loss of the season, 6-2, 6-2.

“He’s a fantastic player who is very deserving of the four seed,” Christensen said. “Their coach even pointed out to me that he played “apex Schulte,” which makes him a handful for anyone in the state. Sometimes I’d go talk to him when he lost two games or broke with him and it was like, ‘Yep, you didn’t do anything wrong, you hit 14 good shots in a row and he had one more than you did.'”

Schulte’s style also played into what made Strand so successful this season.

“We’re so ingrained to pick a guy’s backhand,” Christensen said. “And his ability to hit it 90 miles an hour, it’s crazy, a weapon like no other.”

But now Strand has found his way into the medal section. And after his doubles teammates Nile Christensen and Gavin Jablonski; and Isaac Benscoter and Drew Loney dropped, Tomorrow is bigger than Jason or even the Strand family.

“It’s not just me going into tomorrow,” Jason said. “It’s about the cats. It’s our city. And I’m really excited to represent our team and our city tomorrow.

Nile Christensen and Jablonski finished 1-2 on the day, missing out on the medal round. They knocked out familiar faces in Ames, Tharun Raju and Anson Bernard in the first round, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.

“We got off to a shaky start in that first period, but they dug deep and wanted it more,” James Christensen said. “That’s what you expect from two seniors who are absolute competitors. … Anytime you’ve played somebody five, six times in your life, there’s not a lot of secrets, … but once they start, you can see Ames’ expressions change, like they’ve seen this before.”

Not to mention familiar faces, they then lined up with a Mason City team, Reed Kruger and Justin Yarahmad, who had held off the Bobcats in a tight regular season game.

This was dominated by Mason City, 6-2, 6-4, to send the Bobcat’s top doubles team to the consolation bracket.

“We missed a lot of shots in that game by an inch here or there where we could have put the game down,” James Christensen said. “I know our guys are going to think about that game a lot, how it could have changed things.”

The back end of the bracket was no gentler, facing a tough Bettendorf crew with Jack Reilly and Robert Matera winning 6-3, 6-3.

“The reason Nile and Gavin are such a good doubles team is how they complement each other,” James Christensen said. “Bettendorf had a good game plan to make us play a little bit left-handed, and that limited what we could do.”

For Benscoter and Loney, it was a chance to play against a competitor that was beyond what they normally see at the third doubles spot.

They fell to fourth-ranked Beck Sissel and Luke Berg of West Des Moines Valley in the first round in straight sets before dropping a first-round consolation match to Dowling’s Brady Frye and Jimmy Wanek.

– They had a bad taste in their mouth after losing to Dowling [in team substate],” James Christensen said. “They came out here and played against very tough, tough competition, the kind we’re going to see in the state team tournament. That’s huge going forward.”