by Dakota Antelman, interviews by Alyson Haley
The Midland League B defending champion girls tennis team has, under the direction of a seasoned coach, and with a winning roster, taken the gym time in stride.
With a 2013-2014 season in which they dominated opponents behind them, the girls team will be looking to go even bigger this year. They remain stocked with many of the hard serving and high scoring players from a year ago, and they are coming to appreciate the ever improving skills of an infusion of freshmen into their JV and even varsity positions.
“I think our varsity team is going to be really strong this year,” said returning senior and captain, Emma Polk. “We have me, Katie [Benson], Julia [Smolowitz], and Maris [Laughton] returning from last year’s team, and we are adding on Lauren Gasek and Elizabeth Billings to the team. So I think our team is already strong this year, and I am really excited.”
With Benson, Smolowitz and, Polk all returning, the Hawks are retaining their entire singles core from a year ago. Benson, who was the lead singles player, will likely play the same role this year while Smolowitz (who played second) and Polk (who played third) will battle for their spots on the lineup.
Furthermore, the seniors, Polk, Benson and Laughton, figure to be cornerstone pieces of the team in the coming season. In a clash of experience and youth though, Laughton, who was one of the top Hawks in the doubles competition last season, will be playing alongside ninth grader, Lauren Gasek, in doubles this year.
She spoke highly of Gasek even before the two had gotten on an actual court to play together.
“Lauren is new to our school this year, but I’m pretty sure she’s been playing tennis for awhile now, and I’d be surprised if she hasn’t because she is incredible,” Laughton said.
Gasek has in fact been playing tennis regularly for three years now, something Weed says she saw as a reason to place her alongside Laughton on the number one doubles team.
“She’s got great ground strokes which sets up Maris really well at the net. Maris is a very smart doubles player. She’s played that position for, I think this will be her third year, playing first doubles. She’s very experienced there. She knows what to expect from teams, and she knows a lot about doubles movement. I think she’s a great partner for Lauren to have in terms of helping her develop as a doubles player. I think they’ll compliment each other very well.”
Needless to say though, the confinement of the gym has been a struggle for the doubles players in particular. As Laughton explains, familiarity with a partner as well as communication are key in the actual run of play. With only one makeshift court available in the gym though, playing time has been limited, and getting familiar with partners has been somewhat of a struggle.
“We really need to work together because we are all more or less on the same level,” she said.
Behind the Laughton/Gasek pairing is a much younger pairing with perhaps an even greater need to gain some experience playing with one another. Freshmen Elizabeth Billings and Victoria Gibbs are slated to be the team’s second doubles pairing going into the season. The pair are both new to varsity this year though, and, as a result, are described by Weed as a “wild card.”
“We’ll see how they play this year. Thankfully we have an experienced and solid team ahead of them,” Weed said. “First I think they’re gonna have time to develop in the number two slot, and also, I know they’re gonna be successful particularly in our league.”
A veteran coach, Weed has been sure to delegate adequate time to the inexperienced pairing. She spent much of the first half of the team’s first outdoor practice, on Thursday, April 2, setting up and critiquing Billings and Gibbs.
Practices themselves are set up in a way that lends favorably to strong team leadership and mingling between JV and Varsity players. JV players get the court for the first 45 minutes of practice, with varsity players providing assistance when needed. The squads then split at 3:00, and the varsity players begin their specific drills and team work.
Lauren Gasek cited the leadership of her captains as a force that has helped guide the team in this format.
“Emma Polk is really someone to look up to on varsity because she has such good motivation and hits the ball really hard,” she said. “All through conditioning she keeps us going and reminds us that it’s almost over and that it’s all worth it in the end when we play together and do good in our matches.”
According to Coach Weed though, the setup of the team and its practices are beneficial not only to the younger players, but the veterans as well.
“We’ve had a tough situation to start the year, but my entire varsity team has been coming every day and helping out with JV,” she said. “They’ve been helping them develop so despite the struggles of being inside, I think we’ve maximized what we can do.I think it helps for those girls to be able to help teach other kids and kind of reinforce their own skills. They have to think about what they’re doing right, so they can teach JV to do it right as well.”
As the athletic director’s alterations of the schedule shake out, the tennis team will miss their first week of games, in turn playing through the first week of June; past the normal end of the season and past seniors’ graduation. Though the delay is not ideal for the team, they are confident that their gym work has not been for naught.
“I think that after having a decent amount of time outside, we will be fine and do really well,” Smolowitz said.
The excitement is building; the girls tennis team is ready to defend their undefeated league record and aim for even higher playoff triumphs come June.
“I think we’ve all assumed that we want to win the league again,” Weed asserted before the season began. “We know with the people we have coming back and the caliber we have coming up that we can certainly do that. That’s the goal. We win our league, we qualify for districts. We’ve not been so successful at the district level in years past, so we would like to advance beyond that, which is something that I think is entirely possible with the team that we have.”
