Varsity girls tennis are currently undefeated after winning the most recent game against Ladue last Wednesday.

“We were pretty pumped up because we played pretty well yesterday when we played Kirkwood.” Lauren Milburn, senior, said at the match against Ladue. “Our first match was pretty rough against Westminster, but we kind of figured out what works best for us – how to encourage each other and not get down on ourselves when we made errors.”

Milburn is one of the eight people on the Varsity team. The other members are sophomores Ellie Lewis and Carly Yerges, juniors Athena Zeng, Sarah Salinas, and Alia Arif, and seniors Hetty Bai, Abby Randall, and Kaylee Johnson.

To prepare for the season, the girls have been training in clinics as well as gaining experience through USDA tournaments.

“I feel pretty confident at the net – like hitting volleys with my net game, but I want to working on being more consistent with my serve and I want to work on being more consistent at the baseline,” Milburn said.

The girls hope to get even further than their already successful session last year where they were awarded second in Conference and made it to the Elite Eight in State.

“We’re hoping to do really well this year also because we’re hoping the state tournament bracket will be in our favor and that we can maybe make it to the Final Four in State,” Milburn said.

Matt Delpizzo, varsity girls tennis coach, is also confident with the abilities of the girls this season.

“Everyone’s gotten better and so we’ve actually improved since the seniors have left and the girls that have filled in their sports are actually better than they were,” Delpizzo said. “We are a better and stronger team than we were last year.”

This year, Delpizzo is not concerned about technical abilities as much as overconfidence.

“We’re just worried that we might be a little overconfident from the stuff last year,” Delpizzo said. “We just have to make sure we stay focused every match. Take it one match at a time, don’t get ahead of ourselves, take every opponent seriously, and we’ll improve upon last year.”

As far as team strengths, ability is an obvious one, but another strength is the close dynamic of the team.

“They really all like each other, love each other, root for each other, so that is what carries us through these tougher matches,” Delpizzo said.

Some examples of the girl’s close dynamic are their nicknames for each other, matching bow ties, and frequent get togethers.

“We’re a really close team as well so I think it was just really fun to celebrate with your friends,” Randall said.

Later today, girls tennis will be playing one of their tougher matches against Lafayette. The match will also likely decide whether or not the girls will make it to districts.

“Come support girls tennis,” Randall said.