Regionals Round-Up

The first day of the 2025 postseason is in the books, with the girls individuals regionals completed yesterday. 96 players have qualified for the singles and doubles state tournament, and get to continue their quest for a state title here in a few weeks. With a LOT of tennis conducted yesterday, let's take a look at some of the storylines that came out of regional play.

Title Defense is on

2024 defending state champions in Gabi Fleming of Xavier (1A Singles) and Grace Frye/Juju Mauro of Dowling (2A Doubles) officially are set to defend their titles from last year. Fleming hasn't lost a beat in her sophomore campaign after grabbing the crown as a freshman last spring. She is regarded as one of the top players in all of Iowa regardless of division. The senior duo from Dowling have provided a strong season once again, and presumably will earn the #1 seed at the state tournament. Both the 2024 2A singles and 1A doubles champions have departed due to graduation.

Maximizing their chances

For the first time in their respective programs history, Waukee Northwest and Cedar Rapids Xavier both advanced all of their entries to the state tournament. A feat that is difficult to achieve, these two teams did just that yesterday. Four other schools in Linn-Mar, Dowling, Valley, and Pella all each advanced three of their four entries.

No show, no desire?

Davenport North was a no show at the Iowa City West regional. Reports say that the Wildcats contacted the host site the night before saying they were not sending anybody or coming over to compete. Similar notion to two years ago when Sioux City West refused to play in boys substate.

A lot of representation!

17 2A schools and 22 1A schools will be featured in the singles and doubles state tournaments. A fun fact from yesterdays regionals as well is that only one site of the 16 across Iowa, had four different schools secure the state bids. All other sites at least had one school get two or more bids.

More consistent format

In 2025, it looked like there was a more consistent format across all sites. All rounds before the quarterfinals seemed to be no-ad with super tiebreakers if split sets. The semis and finals looked to be ad scoring and a full third set. A few sits appeared to have full third sets prior to the semis. Getting more consistent with the format.