Cards battle, come up short at district tennis tournament

BOONE — Newton’s boys tennis team came up one point short of advancing to team substate on Monday.

The Cardinals scored 11 points and placed fourth in the eight-team field during a Class 1A district tournament hosted by Boone.

The Toreadors are onto 1A substate after scoring 25 points at the top of the standings. Grinnell (19) and North Polk (12) also advanced.

The rest of the field included Newton (11), South Tama County (8), South Hardin (0), Iowa Falls (0) and Webster City (0).

The Cardinals entered a pair of singles players and two doubles teams for the tournament.

Blake Baumgartner and Jonny Valtman teamed up in doubles and were one position away from advancing to the state tournament.

The duo went 3-1 on the day and finished third out of 16 teams.

Kael Swarts and Evan Marshall were paired up as the other doubles team and they won one match.

Seth Adams won one match and Ethan Valtman went 0-1 in singles.