With a huge number of players graduating, there will be many new faces on Medical Lake‘s girls’ tennis team in 2013 head coach Dawn Eliassen reports.
“We graduated eight last year, so we have very few returning varsity players,” Eliassen said. The team now has just two seniors (Amy Ryan and Katie Larkin) and a junior (Becky Nix) in the top-10. The current No. 1 singles player is sophomore Rachel Hansen, a transfer from Reardan.
But competition has been fierce across a group of players where there is little separation top to bottom.
“I have a problem this year that I’ve never had before, I have lots of girls at basically the same skill level,” Eliassen said. “There’s very little difference between No. 1 and No. 7 or 8 right now.
Eliassen said there will be a lot of changes to the lineup each match due to players taking turns winning challenge matches during weekly practice.
There's another change for the Cardinals as they reenter play in the Northeast A League. “The new league means we only play seven, but we're carrying 10 on the varsity squad,” Eliassen said.
The Cardinals are 3-4 going into spring break where no matches were scheduled. As with the boys, the pace picks up with a Tuesday, April 9 nonleague match at West Valley (3:30 p.m.) followed April 11 with a trip to meet Lind-Ritzville-Sprague, also at 3:30.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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