As the very successful season of the Whitman women’s tennis team comes to a close, coach John Hein and the women lay their eyes on the Northwest Conference Tournament.

“It’s been a really fun season. We have high expectations and have worked hard to meet them,” said Hein. “We feel good about the work we’ve done, and this season’s lead to this conference. We hope to play our best tennis yet.”

“Overall, this season has been really great,” said senior Katie Oost. “I have enjoyed getting to know all the new players, and being their teammate is what I am going to miss most after this year.”
Hein feels that this season has focused intently on long-term goals of developing a nationally ranked team and hopes that the conference tournament will further propel the women’s team towards this goal.

“I’m excited to see how the team is going to play,” said Hein. “I hope we’ll be able to step it up and play. I’m really stoked.”

The playoff tournament, which takes place in Yakima, Wash., is the deciding factor as to which teams will get to go to the regional tournament.

Seeded at No. 3 in conference, the highest since 2007, the girls face a series of challenging matches.

“The downside is that the first top two seeds get a bye, so they only have to play two matches,” said Hein. “If we were the two seed, we would get a by and only have to play one of the top two seeds. The upside is we get a warm-up match, hopefully, since we’ve beaten the No. 6 seed. Hopefully that will help us relax and play some good tennis.”

“We get to play No. 6 seed first, though, instead of the No. 5 we played last year, which gives a little advantage,” said Oost.

Nevertheless, Hein is confident in his team’s ability to battle it out with the rivaling teams, particularly Whitworth and Linfield, who are seeded respectively at no. 1 and no. 2.

“Linfield and Whitman really match up well. That’s a tough match,” said Hein. “We’ve been really close. We can beat them, and I think we’re ready to. Whitworth’s challenging too, but we hope to make it through to the finals.”

“They [Linfield] just barely beat us during the regular season. Both times the score was 5-4 [in Linfield’s favor],” said Oost.

If the women’s team beats Linfield and Whitworth, the winning teams go to the regional tournament, the first step into the national championships. If the women’s team fails to advance, the top girls will have one more individual tournament.

“At least Katie Oost and Elise Otto will attend the tournament,” said Hein. “The rest of the girls will be looking towards next year and seniors will help us prepare for next year.”

The conference tournament will take place April 17 through April 18 at the Yakima Tennis Center. Whitman’s first match-up will be against Willamette, seeded at No. 6. Hein hopes to come out strong in the first doubles matches in order to get some energy into the team’s deeper singles lineup.

Both the men’s and the women’s team will play in Yakima the same weekend.

“This will give both teams a lot of support, because during down time the girls will go support the men’s team, and vice versa,” said Hein.

All in all, Hein feels that this season has been quite a success for him and for his team.

“It’s been a really great first year for me,” said Hein. “The team has been great. It’s been so fun, and I’m so proud of how the team has done so far.”