Trying to play tennis Saturday morning at the Veterans Memorial Tennis Center was like hitting a ping-pong ball in a wind tunnel.

Under gale-force conditions, the Washington boys breezed by Jefferson 5-0 in a preliminary substate team match and moved on to play again next Saturday.

The Warriors will play Linn-Mar in a substate semifinal next Saturday at Kennedy. The winner of that match will face the winner between Cedar Falls and Clinton on Saturday afternoon at Kennedy for the right to advance to the state team tournament.

Gusty winds on the hill-top courts Saturday blew the ball about like a badminton birdie. Serves sailed into the backcourt, high lobs flew away and drop shots bounced every which direction.

“It was the windiest day I’ve ever played in by far,” said Washington senior Mitch Blades after his 6-3, 6-3 victory at No.1 singles over Jefferson junior Jacob Donald.

“It was tough to have to adjust your game from one side to the other because the wind was either blowing behind you or right at you.

“I’ve played in 110 degree weather but never, ever in the wind like this. But, hey, this is Iowa. It’s hard to predict the weather.”

Just two weeks ago in a dual meet, Donald had played Blades toe-to-toe, taking the match to a third set nail-biting tiebreaker that he lost, 12-10. It was a different scenario Saturday.

“Mitch is a more aggressive player and I’m more of a defensive player,” said Donald, who finished fourth in singles in Thursday's district meet. “I think he has a better touch than me.

"This wind really didn’t fit my game. But that’s the way it goes. We were both playing in the same wind.”

For Washington freshman Jackson Hoyt, who teamed with Blades to cop the district doubles title and qualify for the state tournament later this month, it took awhile to get acclimated to the strange conditions.

“I really struggled that first set,” he said of his No.2 singles match with J-Hawk senior Daniel Britton.

In the teams’ dual meet, Britton was Jefferson’s only winner (at No.3 over Ian Schweiger) in an 8-1 Washington rout.

Hoyt finally prevailed 7-5 in the opening set Saturday, then cruised 6-0 in the second. “It was brutal out there,” he said. “I’ve never played in anything like that.”

Since only the team title was at stake, the match ended after Washington swept the first five singles matches.

In the other completed games, Schweiger defeated Zach Denny 6-3, 6-4; Reid Rossberger beat David Shuman 6-3, 6-0; and Grant Kamin outlasted Bruce Croy 6-3, 6-3.

Jefferson ended its season with a 9-7 mark, good for a second-place tie in the Mississippi Division of the MVC behind powerful Iowa City West.

“The MVC, as always, is really solid this year,” said J-Hawk Coach Tim Preston. “So for us to do that well probably puts in the top 15 in the state.

“We’re going to lose four seniors (Britton, Shuman, Croy and Caleb Pfeil) who have won a lot of games for us.

“We lost to a very talented team today. But there weren’t any blowouts. They were all competitive matches.”

Washington Coach Rusty Graff was impressed with the overall play Saturday considering the adverse climate conditions.

“With the wind as bad as it was, I thought both teams did a pretty good job,” he said. “It was terrible weather, but they acquitted themselves very well.”

Going into the substate team tournament, the Warriors are 11-3.

“We didn’t lose a set today, which was good,” Graff said. “We’ve been pretty well focused all season.”