RAPID CITY – Aberdeen Central capped a busy three days of tennis action on Saturday falling to Rapid City Christian 7-2 during the West River Invitational.

“They’re really strong up top. Real similar to us,” said Central coach Trent Kurtz. “They’ve got some experience back up at top, and really strong on top. They’ve got some newer, probably younger players down at the bottom, but they’ve played a lot of tennis.”

He said the Comets’ consistent play gave the Golden Eagles some problems.

“Really consistent. They just keep the ball in play and we really struggled with that,” Kurtz said. “We struggled with that against Stevens the other day and we struggled with it today.”

Kurtz said the Golden Eagles need to work on a couple of things.

“We have to learn to be a little more patient and set up points, and we have to learn when to come into the net,” he said.

Kurtz said the players need to figure out when to pick their spots to the approach the net and then improve their volleys to finish off the point.

“We’re not very good at that, yet,” he said. “We will be.”

Central went 2-3 in their five duals on the trip.

“I always like this,” Kurtz said, “because you get your five matches in right away and kind of figure out where you are. … We just have to become more consistent.”

Kurtz recalled a saying that the late Central coach Burt Elliott used to use back in the day.

“Mr. Elliott used to always say, 90 percent of points in high school tennis are lost, not won,” Kurtz said. “We just lost too many points today, didn’t make the opponent beat us.”

The Golden Eagles are now off until after Easter.

Rapid City Christian 7, Aberdeen Central 2

Singles

Henry Beckloff, RC Ch, def. Dawson Pederson, 10-6.

Ethan Fischer, RC Ch, def. Aric Tennant, 10-5.

Leyton Kenner, RC Ch, def. Mason Moe, 10-2.

Micah Schmidt, RC Ch, def. Wyatt Kiesz, 10-2.

Alex Tarver, AC, def Marius Whitman, 10-5.

Kolbi Kooiman, RC Ch, def. Grayson Rehder, 10-6.

Doubles

Beckloff-Fischer, RC Ch, def. Pederson-Moe, 10-2.

Kenner-Schmidt, RC Ch, def. Tennant-Kiesz, 10-4.

Tarver-Rehder, AC, def. Whitman-Kooiman, 10-7.