Bulldog Tennis Advances to District Championship Match

RoMoAthletics
May 7
3 min read

Coach Vinyard with the post game victory speech to his Tennis Squad.

May 7th, 2026

The top seeded Rolla Bulldogs had a bye in the first round of the Class 2 District 5 Team Tournament. The weather pushed their semifinal match back another day, but the Bulldogs did not miss a beat as they eliminated the #5 seeded Helias Catholic Crusaders, 5-0.

The Bulldogs will play Lebanon today at 4pm in the District Championship to be held in Rolla at Ber Juan Park.

In the opening round games, Helias the 5 seed, upset the #4 seed Capital City Cavaliers, 5-3. In the bottom part of the bracket, the #3 seed Camdenton Lakers easily put away the #6 seed Jefferson City Jays, 5-0.

Taking Down Helias

The Bulldogs now 19-1 on the season swept the Doubles matches against Helias, putting them up 3-0 putting the Bulldogs clearly in the driver seat heading into the Singles play.

The first team to secure 5 wins is declared the winner, with all other on-going matches stopping once the magic number has been hit.

Sophomore Kyle Robinson didn’t waste anytime at Singles #2 as he burned through his games in dominant fashion to put the Bulldogs up 4-0.

The remaining 5 singles matches were locked in a battle. In Singles #1, Keaton Renaud was locked-in with the Helias#1 in a well played match of speed, power, and placement. It was back and forth in a highly entertaining match.

While attention was drawn to the tightly contested matches, Bulldogs Singles #5, senior Connor Johnson, who earlier in the week earned All-District honors showed why as he pulled away in his match to give the Bulldogs the 5th and final win to advance to the Championship.

Paxton Ledbetter in Singles #4

Keaton Renaud taking control

District Scoring

In the district contests, the scoring is different than you find in the regular season. In Doubles they use 8 Game Pro Set with Ad. For Singles, it is the best 2 out of 3 sets to 6 with ad. If they split the first two sets in singles, the 3rd set is only a 10 point tiebreaker.

District Team Championship

The Bulldogs will go up against a familiar foe in the Lebanon Yellowjackets. Rolla, now 19-1 on the season and Lebanon, now 16-6. The two teams split their earlier matches with Lebanon taking the first match in a rain soaked, 5 hour delayed championship game at the Camdenton/Lebanon Tournament. The Bulldogs got an exciting revenge win in Rolla, 5-4, at the tri-meet with Farmington.

The Yellowjackets are led by senior ace Conor McGruder who uses a dominant serve to drive his game and creates havoc in both Singles and Doubles. The Bulldogs Dubs 1 of Renaud and Robinson came up short to the duo of McGruder and Josh Rogers in theIndividuals District Doubles Championship earlier in the week.

The championship match will be played at Ber Juan Park in Rolla and is scheduled to begin at 4pm.

Come out and support your Rolla Bulldogs!