All Prairie, Mountain View at 3A tennis district

Prairie’s David Kriss and Evan Prentice spent all of the 2016 boys tennis regular season as doubles partners before Prentice, as described by coach Chris Linquist, “lit it up” at the district and bi-district tournaments as a singles player, ultimately falling one win shy of reaching the Class 3A state tournament.

“It was a lot of fun,” Kriss said. “We had code words and everything.”

So, of course, they looked forward to challenging each other’s strengths — or maybe going back to the code-word memory bank just for fun — since the senior teammates, now both singles players, reached Saturday’s 3A district tournament for an all-Prairie showdown in the final.

Maybe next week, instead.

A way for that to happen after Prentice won the 3A district singles title after Kriss’ injury default is if the pair square off in the winner’s bracket of next weekend’s bi-district tournament. Because that means the seniors will qualify for the state tournament for the first time.

A week ago, Kriss bruised his knee at Club Green Meadows, the site of this weekend’s district tournament in a dual match against Evergreen. After straight-set wins Friday in his opening round and quarterfinal matches, his three-set semifinal win guaranteed his first bi-district berth.

It’s the second year in a row Mountain View is represented by six players at bi-district. After advancing one pair to state in 2017, coach Nick Frost wants more than a strong showing by numbers.

“Hopefully, we’ll do some damage,” he said.

That’s why he loaded his players in doubles with the idea of getting as many pieces to the next postseason level.

And the strongest opportunity is in doubles, led by the Hsu brothers, who were the Thunder’s Nos. 1 and 2 singles players this season.

Vincent Hsu, a freshman, went undefeated at No. 1 singles while Edmund Hsu, a senior and returning bi-district doubles player, had one loss at No. 2 singles.