Breck girls' tennis players aim at a new target in individual play

One day after Breck fell one match short of the Class 1A girls' tennis team championship, its top-seeded singles player and doubles team focused Thursday on winning individual championships for their school.

Singles favorite Isabelle Einess is no stranger to the heartbreak of defeat. Before Breck lost the team championship by the slimmest of margins Wednesday, 4-3 to Rochester Lourdes, she missed winning last season's singles title by a tiebreaker of the third set of the championship match. She was playing for Minnehaha Academy then and transferred to Breck in the offseason.

She had arrived at Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center ready to make up for that loss. Wednesday's result fired her up even more.

"That was 1,000 percent motivation," Einess said. "Now I want to win the finals more than I did. I had a lot of motivation from last year to finish out what I didn't finish out last year."

Einess advanced through the quarterfinals of the state tournament with a 6-0, 6-0 defeat of Addison Armstrong of Blue Earth. She'll play Lauren Rutten of Staples-Motley in the semifinals Friday morning. The final is also scheduled for Friday morning.

Just hours later, the Mustangs' top-seeded doubles team of Petra Lyon and Whitt Mehbod kept pace with their singles teammate by defeating Providence Academy's Lisey Langhus and Katelyn Clements 6-0, 7-5 in the quarterfinals. They will play Elyse Palen and Caroline Daly of Lourdes in the semifinals Friday.

"Yesterday was a tough match, but it was fun to play," Mehbod said. "They were good competition. It got us ready for today."

The match came down to the team that played better around the net. In the first set, Mehbod and Lyon dominated that area. In the second set they fell behind 3-0. Coach Katie Wessman took a timeout and told them to refocus on the best part of their game. Lyon and Mehbod won the next two points and soon finished it off in straight sets.

"We're definitely a net doubles team," Lyon said. "That's where our game centers around and where we get our energy from."

Minnetonka, having successfully defended its Class 2A team title, advanced two singles players and two doubles teams to the semifinals.

In singles, Kelsey Phillips and Sarah Shahbaz each won two matches, Shahbaz winning both 6-0 and Phillips winning 6-0 in three sets and 6-1 in the other.

Shahbaz, the defending singles champion, will play Cassandra Li of Eagan in a semifinal, and Phillips, the top seed in singles this year, will play Ava Nelson of Elk River in the semis.