On Tuesday, October 4th, the majority of the varsity girls tennis team wrapped up their season in a close 4-5 match in the Class 3 District 3 semi finals against St. Dominic. Senior, Loryn Thorpe, reflects on her tennis career coming to an end with her partner, senior Sophia Miller.

“We both had a really good dynamic. I was really good at defense so I played a lot of back and she was really good at the net so we could counteract each other really well,” Thorpe said. 

Their dynamic didn’t come easy, though. Some experimenting was needed to progress to where they wanted to be, and Thorpe offered for future players to take note of what worked versus what didn’t. 

“I would say to try new things in the beginning of the season, and to play a little bit more aggressively than we did,” Thorpe said. 

As Thorpe and Miller leave the team with eight other seniors, their absence will definitely be felt within the team. Sophomore, Lindsey Way, detailed the way in which the seniors leaving the team this year will influence the players next season.

“It’ll definitely take away some of the personality players,” Way said. 

While seniors filled the team with personality, so did the coaches. Patrick Reed joined forces with Jeremy Rohrbach to coach the girls team this year and Reed is optimistic that their coaching styles will fit each other to better the team in coming years.

“Where I’m weak, [Rorhbach] is strong and where he is weak, I am strong. And as a result, we’re really hopeful that this is a good partnership for the kids because that means that there’s no weak point at all for them and we can continually improve,” Reed said. 

Looking forward to next year, Reed is hoping that the team’s current juniors can lead the team in such a way that the current seniors did to uphold a ‘big sister, little sister’ dynamic that was created between the girls this past season.

“Because culture always means more when it comes from the kids than [when it comes] from the coaches,” Reed said.