Cedar Rapids Xavier, Iowa City West win state team tennis titles

Apparently No. 2 was No. 1 for a pair of Mississippi Valley Conference boys’ tennis teams on Thursday.

Cedar Rapids Xavier, seeded second in the Class 1A state team tournament, downed No. 1 Pella, 5-1, in the championship match in Iowa City.

In West Des Moines, No. 2 Iowa City West dispatched of the top-seeded host, Waukee Northwest, 5-2, in the Class 2A tournament.

It was the fourth straight 1A title for the Saints, who started this season as a “big unknown” after losing four of their top six players.

“I think we shocked some people,” Xavier Coach Jim Potts said.

Although he said it was “kind of a surprise to me,” Potts said he and his assistant were not among the shocked.

“I kind of had a gut feeling ... that we could get it done in the singles,” he said, adding with a laugh that “we may have been the only ones.”

West won its second straight 2A title, beating a team that dominated the Trojans, 8-1, early in the season.

“It was incredible,” Coach Marshal Moellers said, noting that earlier loss was “demoralizing.”

“It was all of us coming together, it was all of us believing.”

The Saints opened the two-day tournament Wednesday with a 5-2 win over Glenwood in the quarterfinals, then took down Decorah, 5-0, in the semifinals.

Decorah lost to Dubuque Wahlert, 5-3, in the third-place match.

“It was a fun couple of days,” Potts said.

Xavier now has won team titles in 2019, ’21, ’22 and ’23. The 2020 tournament was wiped out by COVID.

“This one was pretty meaningful,” Potts said. “It was really good year for us.”

Pella, he said, was a “strong favorite all year” and rightfully so.

“We did play well,” Potts said. “We had to play well to beat them.”

Iowa City West opened the 2A tournament on Wednesday with a 5-0 win over MVC rival Cedar Falls in the quarterfinals. The Trojans then knocked off Pleasant Valley, 5-0, to earn a spot in the finals for the 12th straight year.

Once there, it was all West — again. The Trojans own 11 state team titles, including three of the last four.

“Everybody stepped up. Everybody,” Moellers said.

The matches were set for Waukee Northwest, but were moved inside to the Genesis Health Club by storms. He had a “really big talk” with the team about the “West High School tennis family.”

“It really came down to everybody just uplifting everybody else,” Moellers said.

Pleasant Valley beat Linn-Mar, 5-3, in the third-place bout.

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