The Minnewaska Area boys tennis team announced its season-ending awards recently.  The Lakers closed out the 2024 schedule with a school record 22 victories in going 22-5 overall.

The Lakers also went 6-0 in the WCC to earn another conference title and won the Section 8A Tourney to earn a trip to the state tourney for the second time in program history.

In other words, it was a great season!

Besides the state trip for the team, the Lakers also sent a doubles’ team to the state tourney after Drew Bleick and Carter LeClair won the section doubles’ title. At state, the Laker duo went 1-2.

Minnewaska was swept by top-seeded St. Paul Academy-Summit School in the state opener, 7-0, and also lost to Cotter in the consolation bracket, 6-1.

The Lakers, coached by Tara Reichmann and Chad Quelle, earned their state berth by winning the Section 8A team title with wins over Fergus Falls (6-1), Thief River Falls (6-1) and East Grand Forks (4-3).

This was only the second trip to state for the Laker boys tennis team.  The Lakers also advanced to state in 2022, going 1-2 during the state tourney to place sixth.  The 2022 season was also the year when the Lakers had 21 victories, going 21-7 to set the record for wins in a season until this year’s team won 22 matches.

The Lakers also won the WCC title this season with a perfect 6-0 mark followed by Montevideo (5-1), NLS (4-2), BKMS (3-3), YME (2-4), LQP-DB (1-5) and MACCRAY-RCW (0-6).

The only senior lost to graduation from this year’s team is Connor Quelle, who was a member of the 2022 and 2024 state tournament teams and played first singles for the Lakers the past two seasons.

Minnewaska Area was 14-0 this season before losing its first match.  Besides the state tournament, the only other losses for the Lakers this year were to Sartell, Alexandria and Foley.

Team awards and honors

The Lakers had five players earn All-Conference and another two were named to the honorable mention team.  Earning All-Conference were Connor Quelle, Tenzin Dahl, Drew Bleick, Carter LeClair and Riley Thorfinnson, while named honorable mention were Landon Schiffler and Marshall Kopp.

The Lakers also earned a number of academic-based awards as Quelle was named to the All-State Academic team and the Minnewaska Area boys tennis team earned a Section 8A Gold Academic Award with a team g.p.a. of 3.75 or higher (Lakers had 3.79).

In addition, the Lakers had seven WCC Academic Award winners (g.p.a. of 3.75 or higher) as Dahl, Quelle, Thorfinnson, Bleick, LeClair, Schiffler and Ethan Klick all earned the honor.

•  In team awards, Connor Quelle won the Senior Leadership Award, Carson Beyer was named the Most Improved Player and Drew Bleick won the Team Spirit Award.

Earning the Sportsmanship Award were Tenzin Dahl and Riley Thorfinnson, while Dahl also won the “Hustle, Hit, Never Quit” award, Xavier Johnson was named the Rookie of the Year, LeClair earned the award for most individual wins in a season (28) and Bleick and LeClair were honored for reaching state in doubles.

•  In JV awards, Eddie VanderHagen earned Most Improved, Deven Manderscheid earned the Sportsmanship Award and Carter Myrom and Tydan Stewart won the Rookies of the Year honor.

•  Quelle graduated with a 75-35 overall record, while Dahl is 76-32 going into his senior year and Bleick (52-17) and LeClair (52-13) both have over 50 victories with at least two seasons to go.

Check out more photos in our photo gallery!