“What’s best for the team is best for me”
The team’s biggest challenge this season were the 11 new faces on the varsity lineup.
Coaches and the three returning players worked together to prepare newer players for the rigor of varsity. Compared to junior varsity, varsity practices are longer and involve more playing instead of drills.
Gaard Chapman said the coaches tried to “look for… different strengths in athletes” to develop partnerships and the lineup. They paired “table setters,” players who are more consistent and set up points, with “playmakers,” who are more aggressive and finish games.
“They were flexible as far as partnerships and singles versus doubles, and they did what they were asked by their coaches, and did it to the best of their abilities,” Nielsen said. “When I look back on the fact that we had only three returning varsity players, and we still made it back to the state tournament, it’s just a real big source of pride as a coach.”
Sophomore Cici Bourne, a first year varsity player, said she believed everyone did well collaborating and contributing to the team equally, even if they were new.
“There were times where they were losing matches or losing some confidence, and just trying to keep them positive and focused on doing the next right thing helped us to get where we needed to be at the end of the year,” Gaard Chapman said.
To further develop the positive mindset among players, the coaches emphasized a team-first attitude with the team motto “what’s best for the team is best for me.” Nielsen said these words are especially important when players are asked to take on roles they may not expect for team benefit.
Schenck said she recalled Gaard Chapman introducing this concept when she first joined the team in eighth grade. She sees it manifest in areas outside of tennis, believing it’s “important to have that attitude” in school.
“You’re representing Edina when you step on a tennis court, and even though tennis is such an individual sport, every match matters,” Loucks said. “It’s knowing that the three doubles match win counts as much as the first singles win. They’re all one point. Everyone’s putting their best foot forward, everyone wants that one point, it’s first to four.”
The Edina Girls’ Tennis team has long prided itself on its team culture, traditions such as wake-ups, pasta dinners, and secret rituals before state.
“It was definitely just different because the last two years, everyone really knew each other real close,” Loucks said. “This year was diverse, a lot of different ages, like we also had a seventh grader and eighth grader but multiple twelfth graders.”
Gaard Chapman said she appreciated how Loucks, Hou, and Schenck, the only returning players, “were just very welcoming” and bonded immediately with the new players during their first team meeting after their wake-ups.
As an Edina High School alumna, Gaard Chapman played for the team through four state championships. She said one of her best friends is her former doubles partner and some of her “best high school memories” were the sleepovers and dinners with the team; now, she says that it’s important to her and the rest of the staff to “foster that opportunity for the girls.”
As captains, Hou and Schenck took on a large role in facilitating the connections between players. They made an effort to introduce players to a key aspect of the team, cheering for each other during all matches, especially when other teams had more spectators than them.
“JV, they don’t cheer as much or it’s not as much part of the culture or relationship,” Hou said. “Me and Lauryn really wanted to build that up, especially this year with such a new amount of members.”
Bourne said she noticed the cheering during the section finals match against Wayzata, as she and her doubles partner played a tiebreaker game at the same time as the number four singles match.
“That was just a good moment for our entire team,” Bourne said. “Sometimes when you play, everyone is spread out across courts, but here we were just playing right next to each other and the entire team could watch and cheer on.”
Hou and Schenck also led team activities such as a “Secret Sister” gift giving activity and delivered Gatorade bottles to their teammates with encouraging notes.
After each match, the team chants the Edina school song together. Then, one player will toss a tennis ball to another. If the ball is dropped, then the team superstitiously believes they will not win the state tournament.
“That was a nice way for all the girls to reconnect after the match no matter if it was good or bad and I think it was just a fun thing to do,” Schenck said about the ball throwing tradition. “We did drop it twice. That was probably why we got fourth. No, I’m kidding.”
Loucks said one of her favorite parts of the season was to grow closer with a new set of girls.
“It was such a building year, and for me, a little crazy that we were able to get so far with such a new team,” Loucks said. “I can’t wait for next year for our team to be even closer.”
The team anticipates more rebuilding next season because of its seven graduating seniors, but feels ready after this year’s performance.
“We will use the experience from this year and things we learned and things we feel we could do better to bring into the next season,” Nielsen said. “It’ll still be a team-first culture. Pride in our school, pride in our program, that’s always our focus.”
Bourne and Loucks both look forward to stepping up as leaders and filling Hou and Schenck’s shoes.
“I feel like this year, everyone wanted to win. Everyone wanted to put in effort and you could see our improvement throughout the season,” Bourne said. “I’m hoping that we can do the same thing next year, because it’s going to be a lot of new girls on varsity and I feel like everyone having the desire to put in effort and try their best allowed our team to grow and do so well.”
As for Hou and Schenck, the two said they will cherish all of the fun and friends they’ve made. Both hope next year’s team looks to their leadership and continues the traditions passed down to them.
Schenck says she will miss “being able to say ‘I play for Edina’” most.
“It feels great that we get to hold up the legacy that Edina Girls’ team has always had,” Hou said. “I feel like we’ve made a big imprint, like we’ve left traces of ourselves in the legacy.”
