Philomath High School’s 1-2 punch at the top of the girls tennis lineup returns for another season in senior Bailey Bell and junior Adele Beckstead — a pair of singles players that have been pretty rough on opposing players.
Bell has been a force in district play through her high school career and last season, swept all of her opponents without losing a single game. She’s made an annual tradition out of appearing in the state tournament and last year placed third with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over a Valley Catholic opponent.
Beckstead has been right there as well with her skills on the court with state tournament appearances for each of her high school seasons.
From a team standpoint, Marist Catholic and Stayton might be Philomath’s toughest district competition. Each of those teams had an underclassman reach the 4A/3A/2A/1A quarterfinals last year.
“We’ll be hard-pressed to beat Marist,” PHS girls tennis coach Greg Thorson said. “We tied last year in the dual meets, they got us because we had some sickness in our first doubles team. They got us at district … but we beat them at state. They’re supposed to be adding three freshman girls who are really good. So they’ll probably be hard to beat.”
Twin sisters Megan and Elise Reese, who are seniors, are penciled in for No. 3 and No. 4 singles to start the season.
As for doubles, Thorson has a few decisions to make as the season arrives.
“At first doubles, we have Dani Carlisle — she went to state last year but her partner graduated so we moved up one of the girls from second doubles — Nadia Durski,” Thorson said. “Second doubles will be Lorelei Schell and we’re not quite sure who else yet.”
Further down the lineup, Thorson said he has “really good athletes but pretty new players” that can be plugged in at No. 3 and No. 4 doubles.
In all, Thorson has 21 athletes on the squad, which he’s glad to see because the program will lose six varsity players to graduation after this season. But there are challenges, especially with the more inexperienced players.
“There is such a gap between skill levels,” Thorson said. “When you take an Adele and a Bailey, who are extremely accomplished — Bailey will be playing college tennis next year — and the brand new girls who have never played and you have only a few days outside to practice, that’s the biggest problem. We only have two weeks before our first match.”
In such situations, Thorson said newer players can pick up bad habits that are hard to break.
“You try to teach them the right way but then they make adjustments just to hit the ball in and instead of hitting it the right way, they start poking at the ball, stuff like that, and then they get stuck doing that for the whole season,” Thorson explained. “Tennis is a very skilled game and you need to do it the right way, otherwise, your ceiling is very low.”
As for surprises this season from the freshman group, Thorson did mention Clara Neville, who has the ability to contribute at the lower levels. It’s also possible that a transfer student who played at her previous school will also be competing but she’s not officially on the roster just yet.
The Warriors are scheduled to open the season Tuesday at home against Catlin Gabel. The team then heads to Lebanon Wednesday and Silverton Friday.
Philomath will again head to Coos Bay to play a doubleheader Marshfield and North Bend at the Boys and Girls Club of Southwestern Oregon.
“They were going to come here and we said no, we’d like to come down there because we get two matches guaranteed because they have an indoor facility,” Thorson said. “It makes for a long day but it’s fun for the kids.”
This year’s 4A/3A/2A/1A Special District 2 Tournament is scheduled for May 6 at Estacada and May 9-10 at the Salem Tennis and Swim Club. The 4A/3A/2A/1A state meet is May 23-25 at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
