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By Nora Lucas

Winding up for a serve, senior Kaley Muir focuses on her opponents during her doubles match on Monday, Oct. 3. At its last regular meet of the season, varsity girls tennis went 6-2.

The girls tennis team went 6-2 in their tennis triangular vs. Lansing and Bonner Springs.

Individually, senior Lauren Tracht and junior Madison VanBuhler each went 2-0 in singles play. On the doubles side, the pair of junior Tori Wesp and senior Kaley Muir went 1-1 and the pair of senior Alexa Cash and sophomore Anika Roy went 1-1.

Even with a rough start to the day, Wesp believed that the adversity that the team overcame benefitted them in the end.

“Personally I performed better in the second game,” Wesp said. “I play doubles, so my teammate and I played pretty well in the second game, not the first one. We weren’t connecting very well and we were letting easy shots go.”

Technical aspects of the game are something that head coach Abby Teetsel stresses to the team each day, which contributed to their matches.

“We’ve been working a lot on the placement of shots and not simply hitting the ball right back to your opponent,” Teetsel said. “That’s something each of the players needs to focus on.”

With this result, Wesp knows that the positive outcome will strengthen the team next year and into the postseason.

“It was a good end to the season for most girls. Varsity still has regionals but for everyone else it was a good end to the season,” Wesp said. “[For next year] we hope to do better against better competition next year, especially in the EKL.”

Teetsel also believes that the team will be better prepared for the end of the season at regionals and state due to their performance in the triangular.

“Experience playing good teams is always necessary, and our doubles teams got that when they played Lansing’s teams,” Teetsel said. “It’s a preview of the hard matches they’ll face in the postseason, and they can practice how to win points off teams like that. Wins are also always good for our players’ records, and we got a bunch of those Monday.