Trojan tennis makes school history

OSKALOOSA — Despite a handful of trips to the state tournament, the Fairfield girls tennis team had never been in a Final Four. On Thursday, the Trojans broke down that wall.

Fairfield flew past Pella Christian, 5-0, to make it to the state semifinals for the first time in history. It took a couple of nail-biting wins, but in the end, the Trojans stood tall.

“Most of them have been playing since their freshman year, and they've worked really hard,” said Trojan head coach Heidi Grunwald. “They really wanted it, and I'm glad they got it.”

The Trojans wouldn’t let the game get into doubles play. Fairfield won five singles matches in an hour and a half.

Fairfield had three dominant wins to start the day off. Yana Gaskell swept the No. 1 game 6-0, 6-0. Tess Paton rolled 6-1, 6-1 in the No. 2 game, and Olivia Jones cruised 6-1, 6-0 in the No. 6 game.

That left three singles games outstanding. All three games went to a tiebreaker, with Nellie Higdon’s No. 3 match, Abby Schaefer’s No. 4 match and Lauren Kraemer’s No. 5 match all coming down to a third-set tiebreaker.

Kraemer was the first Trojan to pull out the tiebreaker. After winning the first game 6-4 and dropping the second 6-2, Kraemer ground out a 10-4 win in the tiebreaker to give the Trojans four wins, one away from clinching the day.

“I had some teammates supporting me, so I really knew I had to kick it in gear and get going,” Kraemer said. “I really wanted to help my team out.”

By the time Kraemer left her the court, a celebration was heard from across the field. Higdon had just completed a comeback victory, bouncing back from a 7-5 loss in the first game to win the second, 6-3, and win the tiebreaker 10-2.

“Basically I choked hard core in the first set,” Higdon said. “But then (coach Grunwald) told me that Olivia had won, so that took some of the pressure off.”

The cheering from the Trojan fans reached the ears of Schaefer, who was trailing 2-1 in her tiebreaker after falling 6-4 in the first game and winning the second, 6-3.

Fairfield had been in the state tournament quarterfinals in each of the previous two seasons but failed to reach the semifinals both times, including a tough 5-4 loss to Wahlert in 2019. Now, the Trojans will join three other schools on June 5 in Ankeny to decide the Class 1A state championship.

“It just feels really good,” Higdon said. “It's our last year to finally move on, and not be stuck in this place for so long.”