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CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) The Valley City  State Vikings Tennis Club came away with a fourth place finish over the weekend at the United State Tennis Association’s Tennis-On-Campus Sectional Championships in Lakeville, Minnesota. The Fourth place finish is the best by a Vikings team since their creation in 2004.

 The Vikings entered the weekend tournament as the three seed after competing in a series of USTA TOC fall tournaments.  Led by Senior Kurt Brown and Erika Lutjens VCSU picked up pool play wins over UND B (27-23), UW-Superior (30-7)on the opening day of paly. The win over Superior automatically put the Vikings into the Gold Bracket for the second day of play, giving the Vikings a chance at a national tournament berth. Looking to pick up better seeding, VCSU entered their last game of pool play against SDSU. With the Vikings leading 21-19 the match all came down to the round of mixed doubles. Valley’s team of Alex Conlon and Paige Fetting secured the high seed with a 6-2 win for a final team score of 27-21.

In the opening game of the Gold Bracket the Vikings faced off with Winona State. VCSU made quick work of Winona wining four of five sets to advance to the semifinals. There they would meet up with the University of Minnesota B team.

In the Semi’s the Vikings picked up their first ever set win against a Gophers team with a 6-5 win from Conlon and Fetting. Unfortunately it was the Gophers who moved on to the Championship game with a 30-10 victory. However, the Vikings still had a chance at a national bid if they could claim third place over Carleton.

In the third place match Brown dropped a hard fought match to Avi Moortley in a 6-3 final score.   Again the mixed doubles team on Conlon and Fettig would give the Vikings new hope as the started to an early 4-2 lead over their competitors. However, Carleton would come back to win the set 6-4 ending the Vikigns chances at the national bid in a 30-11 final.

The Vikings lose two seniors this season in Brown and Lutjens , but will return a number of players from this year’s team including junior, Alex Conlon who will take over the leadership role of the team next season .With coach Erik Kringlie returning to the helm it appears the Vikigns success will continue into the 2015-2016 season.