(Sentinel photo by Bethany Kroeze) Nick Gerth returns a serve in his 10-7 loss to Sam Sieh of Spirit Lake. [Click to enlarge]

The Le Mars Community boys tennis team will stumble into Thursday's Class 1A district meet in Spencer without much momentum after dropping its final regular-season dual to Spirit Lake 5-4 Monday at home.

The Bulldogs were gunning for a .500 finish in the Lakes Conference against the Indians, but came up short to finish the league schedule at 4-6 with the loss.

Le Mars defeated Spirit Lake 7-2 in an earlier meeting at Spirit Lake April 17. The loss was the Bulldogs' second straight in the Lakes and the second straight to a team they previously beat after last Thursday's setback at Cherokee.

Three seniors were making their final home appearances for the Bulldogs Monday and two came away winners including No. 1 singles Kyle Koth.

Koth needed a tiebreaker to finish of Spirit Lake's Scott Maudlin, but got the job done 11-10 (7-3).

"I really want to compliment Kyle on getting through that tiebreaker," Le Mars coach Bill Dalton said. "He kept his head, just got it done."

Senior Eric Janssen recorded a singles victory in the No. 5 slot as well, knocking off Mitch O'Neill 10-0. The Bulldogs' other senior - Tyler Petty - suffered a 10-4 loss to Spirit Lake's Blake Kliegl at No. 4.

"Eric and Kyle really finished strong," Dalton said. "Tyler struggled a little bit, but I want to congratulate them all on a good season."

(Advertisement)

In other singles action, No. 2 Anthony Schimek lost to Mason Bergquist 10-6, No. 3 Nick Gerth lost to Sam Sieh 10-7 and No. 6 Mike Ahlers won 10-5 over Brady Harmelink.

Ahlers' win at No. 6 singles gave the Bulldogs a 3-3 split heading into doubles and it became of best-of-three series with the Indians for the win.

Unfortunately for Le Mars, Spirit Lake claimed two of the three doubles, sending the Bulldogs to a season-closing defeat and a below-.500 finish in the conference.

No. 1 doubles team Koth/Janssen lost to Maudlin/Bergquist 10-6, while No. 2 doubles Schimek/Petty also lost 10-6 to Sieh/Kleigl. No. 3 doubles Bret Giese and Zach Lancaster were 10-3 winners over O'Neill/Harmelink, but the win wasn't enough to give Le Mars the dual.

"Both the No. 1 and 2 doubles had a chance. They kept fighting hard and I want to emphasize that," Dalton said. "They didn't quit, stayed in there. We should have gotten one of those but we didn't.

"Really, our No. 3 individual and our No. 1 and No. 2 doubles - we should have gotten at least one of those."

The Bulldogs (5-6 overall) will now tackle a tough field at the district meet Thursday. The field will include host Spencer, as well as Storm Lake, Spirit Lake, Estherville-Lincoln Central, Sioux City Heelan, Denison-Schleswig and Cherokee.

In JV action Thursday, the Bulldogs routed the Indians 8-1 to cap a solid 9-1 dual season.

"The kids are good kids," Le Mars JV coach Shane Hessenius said. "They work very hard and they deserve to have that kind of record."

In singles play, winners included No. 1 Giese (8-6); No. 2 Lancaster (8-2); No. 3 Josh Meredith (8-0); No. 4 Carter Daniels (8-4) and No. 6 Eric Havey (8-4).

The Bulldogs also won all three doubles matches, including No. 1 pair Ahlers/Gerth (8-1), No. 2 Meredith/Daniels (8-0) and No. 3 Kent Hasselquist/Curtis Durr (8-1).

In exhibition play, the Bulldogs had singles wins from Jacob Hansen (6-3) and Kyan Ludwig (6-5).