Bettendorf boys tennis wins district

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By Christopher Maloney | Friday, May 11, 2007 11:59 AM CDT | () comments

CLINTON, Iowa — The Bettendorf Bulldogs entered Thursday’s Class 2A district meet determined to prove they were better than their third-place finish at the Mississippi Athletic Conference championships last weekend.

It took a tide-turning, 3-hour doubles match and a district-clinching singles match to pull it out, but Bettendorf topped Clinton to advance to the substate round of the state playoffs with the win.

Clinton will host Pleasant Valley on Saturday to determine which other districts finalist will advance.

Bettendorf coach Al Takemoto said the Bulldogs’ districts victory “thrilled him to death.”

“They all performed very well,” he said. “I think they came here with their goal to win this as a team, not just individually. They worked very hard for this and will work even harder for state.”

Bulldogs junior Adam DeSimone and sophomore Christopher Pratt placed first and second in the individual competition to advance to state.

The 3-hour match that pushed the Bulldogs toward their team victory pitted Louie Constaniou and Tom Burdakin against Pleasant Valley’s Alex D’Angelo and Chris Huber. The Bulldogs duo won 7-6, 5-7, 7-6.

Pleasant Valley coach Randy Brockhage said the match was the Spartans’ season in a nutshell.

“Both of our guys played tough,” he said. “Whenever you get beat in two tiebreakers like that, it is a tough way to lose. This season, we lost a lot of close matches like that one, but our kids played tough and fought hard all year. They have kept their heads up and battled the whole time.”

Spartans sophomore Ben Bramer defeated Jake Pinkston 6-1, 7-5 to finish third in singles. Bramer’s semifinal loss to

DeSimone (6-2, 6-0) clinched Bettendorf’s district win.

For DeSimone, Thursday’s singles title was about “taking care of business.”

“I played well enough for the scores to look good on paper,” he said.

For Clinton, the sweetest victory came from the doubles team of Randy Hurlburt and Josh Lawrence, which defeated fellow RiverKings Tom and Elliott Deering 6-1, 6-3 to win the districts’ doubles title and advance to state.

“We played pretty strong today,” Hurlburt said. “We attacked the net and played our game. That is what we do best. There were lots of close matches today, so it was definitely not an easy victory.”

Contact the sports desk at (563) 383-2285 or sports@qctimes.com.