Hastings has three players returning to the state meet for the second consecutive season. Senior Claire Keller is making a repeat trip on the singles side and her two sophomore sisters, Reese and Brooklyn, are going back as a doubles team.

All three girls have been the number one, two and three singles players for the Raiders all year. When Claire had to stop playing for a few weeks due to injury, Reese and Brooklyn simply slid up a spot to continue the Keller dominance for Hastings.

Heading into the Section 3AA tournament, Claire was ranked as the number two seed in the section behind Eagan’s Cassandra Li, setting up the same final’s opportunity as last year. Both Claire and Li cruised through their matches to get to the first-place match. Claire first defeated Camilla Brooks of Park 6-0, 6-0. She then took on the number eight seeded Ela Cantellano from Como Park winning 6-1, 6-0. In round three, she faced Rosemount’s Emily Hopke, defeating her 6-1, 6-0. In the semifinals, Claire took down the number three ranked Paige Heideman 6-2, 6-2 before falling to Li 6-0, 6-0 in the championship match.

With the loss in the championship match, Claire had to face the number four seeded Meryl Rosenberger from Visitation. Claire won that 6-2, 6-2 to earn second place in the section to move on to the state tournament.

In the first round of the tournament, Rosenberger faced off against Hastings’ Brooke Jelley defeating her 6-1, 6-0.

On the doubles side of things, Brooklyn and Reese entered the tournament unranked because they had not officially played as a doubles team in the regular season, and they nearly dominated the doubles tournament. First, they faced Simley’s Taylor Oster and Rose Burrows, defeating them 6-0, 6-0. In round two, the pair faced off against Anna Brock and Alice Verbrugge from Highland Park winning that contest 6-0, 6-3. South St. Paul’s sister duo of Annie and Liberty Felton gave the Keller sisters their toughest challenge of the section meet, but Hastings came out on top 6-4, 6-1.

The semifinals match was against the number one seeded team from Eagan, Drew Buslee and Emerson Chaloux. Again, the Kellers dominated that match 6-0, 6-1. In the Championship round, Brooklyn and Reese faced East Ridge’s Selma Vander Linden and Anne Benjamin. This was their second toughest match of the weekend, but they came out on top 6-1, 6-3 to earn the title of Doubles Section 3AA Champions!

The Class AA singles and doubles tournament will be held Thur., Oct. 26 with singles starting at 8:00 a.m. and Doubles starting at 10:00 a.m. at the University of Minnesota’s Baseline Tennis Center. I’ll be there to bring you live updates as I can on Facebook and of course, the recap will be in the Nov. 2 edition of the Hastings Journal.

Best of luck to our Raiders at State!