Girls tennis finished third in 4A KingCo, their best performance in over five years, with a league score of 7-2 and an overall score of 9-3. The team sent two singles and two doubles to districts, with sophomore Brooke Demerath in the finals, and junior Milan Mar and freshman Alyssa Chinn scoring second in doubles.
Senior co-captain Melinda Whalen said the team has improved since last season where they placed second-to-last in the district. Senior co-captain Margot Reynolds agreed.
“The season has been honestly much better than I could have hoped,” Reynolds said. “We’ve had good weather and actually finished third in the district, and they had to go to a tiebreaker because there was a three-way tie for second.”
Reynolds said that even though varsity coach Jane Demerath always pushes them to win, her personal goal is to play her best every game.
“[Our coach’s] goal is always to win the district, but my goal is honestly just to play the best tennis I can regardless of how the matches turn out,” Reynolds said. “Some schools are always just impossible to beat, like Skyline, but this year we were able to turn the tables and beat them.”
Brooke said the best part about being on the tennis team is that everyone on the team gets along.
“Everyone is so funny and we get along really well,” Brooke said. “Everyone’s friends with everyone and we love to do team bonding.”
Their team dynamic, as Reynolds said, is fun because they had a lot of opportunities to bond.
“Varsity got bubble tea or pho almost every Friday,” Reynolds said. “[Our coach] is really awesome about letting us stop for dinner after long matches and letting us go to team bonding which helps us all get along really well.”
Whalen said the team dynamic has been especially strong this year, both on and off the court. She reflected on what she’s going to miss the most between the volleys, serves, games and team bonding experiences: her fellow seniors.
“Me and [seniors Margot Reynolds, Karina Nelson, Shreya Senthil and Evelyn Yang] have been together since freshman year, and we just keep coming back,” Whalen said. “We’ve just been built up since our freshman year, and we’re a winning team. It’s been really nice to be on such a team and I think I’m going to miss playing with them the most.”
