East Ridge volleyball: Raptors take out North St. Paul before falling to Cretin-Derham Hall

The East Ridge girls tennis team took a swing at its section competition, and struck a blow, before being knocked out in its second match and having its season come to an end.

Seeded sixth out of 15 teams, East Ridge earned a first-round bye in the Section 4AA tournament, before beating 11th-seed North St. Paul 6-1 in the second round on Tuesday, Oct. 4, at East Ridge High School.

However, in the third round, the Raptors couldn’t pull off an upset against No. 3-seed Cretin-Derham Hall, falling 5-2 in St. Paul to end the team-portion of the season.

In the win over North St. Paul, Leah Robinson won 6-3, 6-4 at No. 1 singles, Maddie Blake won 6-3, 6-3 at second singles and Natalie Robinson won 6-0, 6-0 at No. 4 singles. East Ridge swept doubles play, as the No. 1 duo of Taylor Anderson and Nicole Robinson won 6-0, 6-2, the second-dubs team of Hannah Strom and Anna Bearrood won 6-1, 6-0 and the tandem of Hannah Jacobs and Minh-Tu Van won 6-0, 6-2 at third doubles.

In the loss to Cretin-Derham Hall, Leah Robinson won 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, at first singles and Natalie Robinson won 6-2, 7-5 at fourth singles.

“It was a good win versus North to start the section tournament,” East Ridge head coach Jon Rydberg said. “It’s always a good thing to be confident going onto the next round against a good team like Cretin. We played Cretin tough both times this year but just fell short. We had two matches that we could have won that were close or one that we had won in our first meeting. These types of matches are always closer than the score looks.

“Our team is looking forward to next year as we are returning almost everyone.”

The season doesn’t end for all the Raptors, however, as individual sections take place this week where six East Ridge girls will be competing.

“We should field a solid lineup all the way around,” Rydberg said.

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