October 25, 2019 at 11:17 a.m.
Johnson voted RHS girls' tennis MVP
Johnson voted RHS girls' tennis MVP
Johnson, Rhinelander's No. 1 singles player, received the Hodag tennis team's most valuable player award during a banquet last Sunday at The Haven restaurant. The award was voted on by her peers.
Johnson finished just above .500 on the season, at 15-14 overall, and was a third-place finisher in the Great Northern Conference. However, coach Bob Heideman, said Johnson's effort in fending off the best players at the top flight allowed the rest of her teammates to have more success.
"Teams can be mediocre, teams can be bad, but they can have a good No. 1 player. You're constantly going against these players. In Rhinelander, as your teammates are racking up wins, you're doing so-so as far as the win-loss column," he said. "I think that absorbing those (losses), growing from those and becoming a better player, I think that was part of the reason why she was voted the most valuable player by her teammates. That's a valuable thing for the team. Annika did it with her head up and did it about as well as anybody that I can remember."
"I look at Annika's 14 losses and many of those girls were down at the state tournament, doing well. I think it's a feature that Annika may have some losses, but those losses were to better players," Heideman added. That's a distinction in tennis in terms of if you lose to players who aren't better than you, that's something that has to be dealt with. If you give a good effort and are in there fighting against someone who is just better, that's something different. Annika fell into that category."
Johnson was one of five award winners on this year's varsity squad. No. 4 singles player Kat Metropulos was voted the team's most improved player, Lisa White was given the Ms. Hustle award for her role at No. 2 doubles and the No. 3 doubles team of Izzy Haverkampf and Jaiden Thiel won the team's Three Setter-Netter award.
Metropulos, a junior, emerged out of an early-season platoon with freshman Taylor Riopel to secure the team's No. 4 singles spot. She went 14-3 along the way with a couple of grueling losses, most notably a three-setter to Anitgo's Brecklyn Flannery in which Metropulos was one game away from closing the match out in straight sets. Metropulos avenged her loss to Flannery at the conference meet.
"As the season get on, I think she was a little more athletic than I thought she was at the beginning of the season. She got a lot of balls back," Heideman noted.
The other award winners were a part of a group of varsity reserves on last year's conference championship team that stepped into the starting lineup this year.
Heideman gave the hustle award to White for "running around that court, running down shots," at No. 2 doubles with teammate Kathryn Borski. Together they went 21-9 as a doubles tandem.
"The range of their worst play and their best playing was closer together than our other teams," he said. "I knew that these two, match after match, were just going to come in and play their game."
That was in stark contrast to Haverkampf and Thiel, a pair of seniors at No. 3 doubles. Though they went 23-7 together, they have three-set matches, winning two of them. Heideman said the two had "a lot of roller coaster matches."
"It was interesting because they were kind of thrown together (as a doubles team)," he said. "Jaiden was kind of groomed as a singles player and this year, we threw her into doubles, and I think it worked out. It wasn't a doubles team that was ordained to be before the season, but the team really needed our No. 3 doubles team, whoever that was, to have a good year. 23-7 is a good year and I'm very proud of these two for having done that."
Three of Rhinelander's seniors -Â Kenedy Van Zile (No. 2 singles) and the No. 1 doubles pairing of Alex Oestreich and Jackie Wells - were recognized as this year's team captains. The eight award winners, along with Kaylee Pontell, Borski, Riopel and Alexis Engelking, received varsity letters.
The Hodags went 18-7 overall this season, including 7-0 in the GNC en route to the team's ninth conference title in 10 years. Heideman noted that this year's senior class compiled an overall record of 74-21 during their high school careers, which matches the most wins of any graduating class in program history.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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