With several losing seasons behind them, the girls tennis team is committed to winning conference and sending some girls to the state tournament.

Due to their new varsity coach Julie Easter, some changes have been made during the practices.

“We are running at least a half mile a day, on top of footwork practice, and drills to keep us on offensive mode instead of defensive,” Grace Thelo, senior, said.

Although tougher practices have been improving the team’s overall ability, the girls are bonding off of the court with team dinners and meetings.

“We have started to become even closer than we have been in the last for years from team get-togethers. A strong team relationship is the foundation of a successful team,” Ireland Binkowski, senior, said.

One of the team’s most valuable strengths is the depth in their lineup. The players on the varsity team range from freshmen to seniors, so the young talent is essential to the future of the girl’s team. Because of the level of talent on the team, every playing spot holds a significant amount of talent.

In order to get a top seed at the conference tournament, the girls must utilize their surplus of talent to start off strong with conference play quickly approaching. To make it more difficult, most of the matches against teams in the conference are away.  

“Oswego East and Plainfield North will be our toughest opponents at the conference tournament,” Mallory Bush, senior, said.

However, Easter believes the talent on the team is enough to take down OEHS and PNHS.

“Conference is ours to lose,” Easter said.

 According to the girls, their confidence in themselves and their coaches is a great motivator during practices and matches. However, they approach every match expecting the team to be better than they are, never getting arrogant.

The girls maintain that same attitude during practice. While during matches each girl is playing for an individual win, they are also playing to win as a team. This means in practice the girls focus on pushing each other to be better and helping out one another in their individual games.

“The best part about tennis is improving your game to ultimately win and doing that with your teammates or your doubles partner,” Thelo said.

Girls tennis has their next home match on Tuesday, Sept. 5 against conference opponent Plainfield East.