Sister serenade

We try to laugh at the mistake, sometimes we sing songs.”

Reese Keller

We’re being dead serious, like the Lion King”

Brooklyn Keller

Making the Minnesota State High School League state tournament in any sport is tough, being a returning participant like Brooklyn and Reese Keller have done in tennis is even more so. The Kellers have made multiple appearances as a doubles team in their time at Hastings and this year, as juniors, they earned fourth place in the state.
The state meet took place at the Baseline Tennis Center at the University of Minnesota. The final tournament required four straight wins to become state champs with two rounds played on Thursday and two on Friday.
Their first match against Mounds View was a great draw according to head coach Marissa Welch. Welch felt the Raiders matched up well against the Mustangs pairing for the first round. The two did give Hastings some trouble in the two sets, but that was short lived, and Hastings came out on top 6-3 and 6-3 to move into the second round.
“We did a good job keeping it cross court and going down the line when we had openings,” said the sisters after the first match.
It was interesting to hear them talk about the match because they were finishing each other’s sentences and played so well off each other. The hard part is differentiating their voices for the purpose of the story, but they were very clear that no matter what, they try to stay positive for each other.
An important part of playing doubles tennis is knowing and trusting your partner, even when things do not go as planned.
“We try to laugh at the mistake, sometimes we sing songs,” said Reese.
“We’re being dead serious, like the Lion King,” said Brooklyn
That little speck of information changes everything when watching these two play together. They are already fun to watch because they are skilled players, but now, when they do their high five between volley’s, fans will also get to wonder what lyrics they are on to the Lion Sleeps Tonight.
The second-round match was against the number three seeded Maple Grove team of Maddie Larsen and Summer Ode. The first set shocked Maple Grove with a 6-0 Raider win and it was clear that they had no idea what hit them. On paper, the Kellers were not officially seeded, so it is unclear if the Crimson simply came in expecting to win, or what the situation was, but they were not ready to face the Raiders.
Heading into the second round, the girls knew what they had to do to win.
“We definitely need to change up the pace, like coming in, taking stuff out of the air. Be willing to stay with it, because they're a good team, but they will miss and you got to play Aussie too,” they said.
Aussie meaning Australian formation, a formation where the duo stays stacked in the middle of the court to confuse their opponents about who is going to return the next hit.
Maple Grove won the second match 1-6 and Raider fans were in for a nailbiter of the afternoon. Maple Grove fought off seven different match points to make the second round more interesting than it needed to be, but ultimately, Hastings won the final round 6-4.
On Friday, things went a bit south for the Raiders. The first match the girls had to start things off was against the number two seeded Edina Hornets team of Astrid Kerrman and Raya Hou. The Hornets stung the Raiders with two straight set losses, 6-3 and 6-4. The games were so close, it could have gone either way, but Edina got the extra bounces that Hastings needed to get.
With the semi-final round loss, Hastings was now in a spot to play for third place, and they faced the reigning doubles champion from 2023, Mounds View. This time it was the Mustangs’ number one team of Malea Diehn and Keely Ryder. The Mustangs took both sets 6-0 and 6-4 to end the Raiders season with a fourth-place doubles tennis finish.
The coolest part of the two days was definitely the first-round match, both because the girls won and because they had a surprise contingency of student supporters. Roughly 20 students showed up to support the efforts of their classmates and not only did the two student-athletes love it, the coaches and parents did too.
The Kellers were certainly taken by surprise.
“I thought it was funny. I liked it, I was not expecting it, usually no one shows up for tennis except our families,” they said. “Our mom cheers really loud, so normally it is her against 40 people. So, yeah, it was nice actually having them there. We’d get a point, and we’d get clapping. It was funny too, so it lifted us up.”
The student section was not exactly sure what the proper protocol was for fans, so they talked to the expert, Head Coach Marissa Welch. She gave them the rundown and the kids were super respectful.
“Jon [Harris] has done a great job rallying and leading these students for all sorts of events,” said Welch. “We are happy they are here, and they have been great so far.”
They were great the entire time they were there even though they did not quite understand the tennis scoring or how the matches were played, but they caught on quickly with the help of assistant coach Alex Zuzek.
With that, the 2024 girls tennis season comes to a close. Congratulations on a fun season to all of the Raiders and big congratulations to Brooklyn and Reese on their fourth-place state tournament finish. Hopefully next year the report will be that Hastings has another state champion to brag about between the individuals and doubles teams.