Raiders armed with confidence

Coming off its first winning season in more than a decade, the Bolingbrook girls tennis team heads into Friday's SWSC Division Meet with plenty of confidence and experience.

The Raiders finished the regular season with an 11-9 overall dual meet record marked the first winning season since the 1997 campaign. The team also went 2-5 in conference matches.

"I thought that this season our match play has been great and we have done well against our conference opponents, who are tough to beat," Raiders coach Sargy Letuchy said. "I think we have a tough road ahead of us. However, the girls' efforts have always been there and that's all you can ask for as the coach."

Where the players will be slotted for this year's divisional meet will be no secret as basically they have stayed the same since day one. Letuchy will elect to go with freshman Nneka Onyejiaka as his No. 1 singles player, despite her youth.

"Nneka has competed well against some of the best players in the state and she is definitely in the right position for us. The No. 1 position is truly her position," Letuchy said. "She has learned a lot and she's improved into a better player. The pressure of a No. 1 (player) can be tough, especially as a freshman. But she has handled it well and I look for her to continue to improve during the meet."

"This is going to be hard for me because even though they have been close matches, I have been losing," Onyejiaka said. "After playing them (the other teams' top players) I know what I need to work on."

In the No. 1 doubles position, Letuchy will go with Sherrie Phillips with Ryann Woodfill. Both are seniors who have been playing together for two years on varsity.

"I want to go out there and push myself harder," Phillips said. "I really want to achieve more than I ever have on the court. I might play tennis in college, I might not. I'm not sure. But what I do know is that I get to play now and I want to do well."

Last year Phillips and Woodfill teamed up as juniors and advanced to the semifinals before being knocked out of the division meet. Overall the Raiders finished fourth in conference.

"Everything that we learned in the past couple of years has to come together in these last matches," Woodfill said. "I've been playing with Sherrie for over two years now and I can't picture me playing with anybody else."

This season the division meet will have a new setup as six teams will be involved instead of five. The format will be double elimination instead of the previous single-elimination bracket.

Most likely the girls will see the same opponent as they did when the teams played in regular-season dual matches.

"I think beating somebody twice in one year something that is very difficult," Letuchy said. "I hope that we have improved enough and gained enough confidence that going into the tournament that we feel pretty good about ourselves."

Lockport will host the meet on Friday and Saturday.

Comment at thebolingbrooksun.com