Team review: RHS girls’ tennis

The numbers painted a pretty clear picture of the 2024 season for the Rhinelander High School girls’ tennis team. With a 13-17 overall record, a fifth-place finish in the Great Northern Conference and a sixth-place finish in a nine-team WIAA subsectional, 2024 was a decidedly down year for a program that has experience more than a decade of success.

GNC champs just two seasons ago, the Hodags came into the season wanting to start a new streak of conference dominance but, instead, posted their lowest finish in league play since joining the GNC in 2010. 

To be sure, part of the Hodags’ struggles could be traced back to the fact that it was simply a strong year for other teams in the GNC, many of whom featured senior-laden rosters. Lakeland won the conference title but was edged for a trip to the WIAA D2 state tennis meet by GNC rival Wausau Newman, underscoring the depth of the conference. 

Given that, and given the number of underclassmen working their way through the program, coach Matt Nichols was not ready to call the team’s goal of starting a new conference winning streak a bust — rather viewing this year as a building block toward a long-term goal of getting back to the top of the GNC.

“It’s not just the varsity, it’s the JV and the freshman putting in the time and in future years. The whole team is working toward that goal and we’ll see how it pans out in the future,” he said last month during the team’s season-ending banquet. “All of the varsity improved throughout the year, which is the end goal here.”

Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.

Down in the GNC

By the numbers, the Hodags experienced a number of low-water marks this year in GNC play. 

Prior to last season, the Hodags had finished first or second in conference play every year since 2010. After finishing third last year, the Hodags fell to fifth this year, edged out by Medford for the final sport in the top half of the conference standings. 

Lakeland swept Rhinelander Sept. 10 during dual meet play, making the first time the Hodags have suffered a 7-0 defeat against a GNC opponent. At the GNC tournament, the Hodags failed to have any flights finish in the top three —marking the first time as a member of the conference the team had been shut out from earning all-conference recognition.

“It’s not the result we wanted, but it was kind of expected following the regular season duals,” Nichols said following the conference meet.

OK vs. the Valley

The Hodags took some lumps early in the non-conference schedule, going 1-5 in the opening Bay Port Invite. That was followed by a 1-3 mark in a rain-shortened tournament in Wausau, followed by a 1-4 record in a second tournament in Wausau. 

Improvement was a recurring theme for the Hodags during the season, and Nichols noted that his team showed that in its final trip to Wausau, when it went 4-1 in a tournament that included wins over Wisconsin Valley Conference squads Wausau East, D.C. Everest and Wausau West.

“We went to five different tournaments and I think, results-wise we had a slower start, but we finished 4-1 on the last weekend and ended up being Wausau West, which was a very strong, competitive team. That was a cool way to end the tournament schedule,” he said.

In fact, Rhinelander fared OK against the larger schools in the Wisconsin Valley Conference — many of whom make up the field for subsectional play. The Hodags were 6-4 against the Valley in dual meets this fall — sweeping a pair of matches against Wausau East and D.C. Everest, splitting two matches against Wausau West and taking its lone match of the fall against Merrill.

Postseason

The combination of middle of the road records between the GNC and the Valley led to middle of the road seeds for the Hodags come postseason time. Rhinelander had no higher than a No. 3 seed in any flight when it hosted a WIAA subsectional and advanced only one flight through to the sectional round.

That one flight was a thriller, though, as seniors Evelyn Sawyer and Maya Patrick fended off Was West’s Layne Fuller and Stella Olson 7-5, 6-0 in the first round and then outlasted Medford’s Lily Holmes and Bayley Metz in a match to advance to sectionals 6-4, 3-6, 10-6. 

“In that tiebreak, there was drive and that’s not something we’ve seen at every flight throughout the season,” Nichols said following that match. “It’s just something that we didn’t see every day. That flight has really turned it on at the end of the season here and it’s not a huge surprise for them to pull that win out. They’re a good team and they’ve been in tight matches before and they pushed through.”

Patrick and Sawyer were the only Rhinelander players to advance through to the sectional round. They lost both of their matches at sectionals to finish fourth in the No. 2 doubles flight.

Statbook

Patrick had the most wins on the team, going 20-13 overall on the season. The majority of her time was spent at No. 2 doubles where she compiled a 15-11 record together with Patrick. Willow VanDenHeuvel was second on the team with 19 wins, followed by 17 each for Dawsyn Barkus and Brook Sisel, and 16 for Sawyer. Barkus and Sisel were 16-15 together at No. 1 doubles while VanDenHeuvel went 7-1 with Teagan Turcotte and 8-9 with Eve Heck, mainly at No. 3 doubles. 

Overall, Rhinelander fared far better in doubles (59-43) than singles (54-77) during the year. Kelsey Winter was Rhinelander’s top player in singles, going 14-17 at the No. 1 flight. Junior Maddie Legrey was the only regular starter on the single side to post a winning record on the year. She went 10-8 at No. 3 singles and 14-13 overall.

What’s next

The Hodags will have to build from the bottom again next year as six seniors —Winter, Karmen Lopez, Barkus, Sisel, Sawyer and Patrick — who occupied Rhinelander’s top two singles and doubles flights will depart.

While too early to tell who will move into which spots in the lineup, the Hodags will return two starters from singles — Legrey and sophomore Sam Aschenbrenner — along with Heck and VanDenHeuvel from the doubles lineup. The Hodags will also bring back a number of players — including Turcotte, fellow junior Willow Mutter and sophomores Becca Brost and JaLyn LaChapelle — who made spot starts on varsity throughout the year. 

What’s more, the Hodags’ JV squad went 5-1 in dual meets on the year and took five of the seven flights at the unofficial junior varsity conference meet in late September.

“We’re excited to see what the future holds,” Nichols said at the banquet. “Every team, you lose seniors and you have freshmen, sophomores and junior come up. We’re super excited to see the girls who are up next, how they’re going to perform next year. We hope to see in the offseason the growth.”

The majority of the varsity squad traveled with Sawyer and Patrick to sectionals last month. Nichols said the returning players left that tournament inspired to put in the effort to help rebuild the Hodag program.

“As we departed, a lot of those younger girls are very motivated. They’re talking about hitting in the offseason, getting groups together, playing leagues, coming to camp,” he said. “It was very motivating for them to see how close they are and what an offseason can really do. They’re already talking about it. I have high hopes that they put in a lot of time. We have a strong group of JV athletes ready to move up and fill the holes the seniors left. I’m hoping for a good offseason, hoping the team works together in the offseason and comes back stronger next year.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].