By Tucker Tholen
With the strong spring winds blowing on a Tuesday afternoon the City High boys tennis team opened up the season against Cedar Rapids Prairie.

The Little Hawks won big 8-1, lead by City’s Nathaniel Gier ’10 who won singles 6-2, 6-1 and doubles 7-6, 6-7 and 10-7 in the tiebreaker.

“That was a close match!” City High coach Chip Hardesty “They were a good team.”

Hardesty has great expectations for the doubles team of Philip Riley ’10 and Nathaniel Gier.

“If everything breaks right Riley and Gier could get a top eight seed in the state.” Hardesty said.

City also won five of the six double overall. The only lose being by Philip Riley to Prairie’s state place winner Parker Linn.

City High has a lot of experience returning five of the six varsity players from last year and not only are the players experienced.

“We have a lot of athletes and they are only going to get better with time.” Hardesty said.

City High will match up against Xavier tomorrow who they lost to last year. Xavier lost their number one, state champion from last year who accounted for two points last year. Riley defeated Xavier’s current number one last year.