Girls’ Tennis & Golf State Roundup

Girls’ Tennis State

After winning state three years in a row, the girls’ varsity tennis team felt pressured to live up to previous seasons’ standards. With winning yet another state championship in mind, the girls headed to state on Oct. 18, but went home with second place as state champion runners-up.

According to team captain and senior Aidan Epstein, every year the team has a 50/50 chance of playing someone from their own team. This is because the team could be in the other side of the bracket. This year was no different. Epstein ended up playing sophomore Sarah Wilcox in the quarter-finals, Epstein lost to Wilcox, who went on to win the semi-finals.

In the state championship finals, Wilcox played Shawnee Mission West senior Josephine Cao and lost.

“I was expecting the match to be more competitive, but it wasn’t, and that’s what hurt me,” Wilcox said. “She played really well and there’s nothing I could do about that.”

The team consisted of two doubles partners and two singles. The doubles team, freshman Lucy Kendall and junior Joey Freirich, came in 5th place, while junior Gretchen Cooper and sophomore Larkin McLiney placed 4th.

“I think the doubles teams did really well and really showed some strengths,” Epstein said. “We can always improve but I feel really good about next year’s team.”

Girls Golf State

The girls’ golf team was nervous as they started to play, only having golfed at the Terradyne Country Club golf course once or twice before. The last time the team won was 2012.

Sophomore Julia Stopperan explained that the course contained many tall-grass areas, which were hard to avoid. With a 45 mph wind speed, they really had to focus on the accuracy of their shots rather than the length. Stopperan ended up coming in 32nd place out of the 100 plus high school girls competing at state.

Junior Jessica Parker scored the lowest out of all East girls, with a final score of 80, and came in 4th place. Junior Riley Ricket had the team’s third best score, tying for 8th place.

East came in first place with a 20 stroke lead.

“I personally think I did really well that day and have showed a lot of improvement throughout the season,” Ricket said.  “I’m not only proud of myself but I’m proud of how my team did.”