Women’s tennis takes home four flight titles at home

Adversity is not a foreign concept to any athlete. The challenges every player, team and coach face influence the way their season goes and whether they win or lose. So the most important challenge, in regards to adversity for any competitor, is how you beat the adversity you face.

This challenge became reality for the Toledo Women’s Tennis team coming into the season with an inexperienced team, being coached full time by graduate assistant coach Courtney Wilds. These two elements typically do not come together for a winning formula, but Wilds knows what it takes to be a winner in MAC tennis.

Wilds earned MAC first team honors three straight times while playing tennis for Ball State, and has been using that experience to help the young team come into their own.

“It’s definitely a good experience, being a collegiate player for four years in the Mac conference. It’s kind of nice to look at the other side of it, how you would be as a player versus how you would be as a coach,” said Wilds, when asked about how she has adjusted to being a full time coach. “I think it’s helpful that I did play, especially in the same conference, and hopefully I can help the girls in the same way that I needed that help.”

Wilds has been using her experience as a player to push the girls to improve their mental toughness and stamina, and the results are beginning to show.

The team hosted the Rocket Invitational this weekend — the team’s second tournament of the year — and a chance to prove themselves on their home court.

Last year the Rockets took home three flight victories and this year they improved that total to four.

Second-year Rani Goodland and first-year Mimi Kendall-Woseley finished as the Flight 3 doubles champions after defeating Youngstown State and Detroit

Third-year Colleen O’Brien won the No. 2 singles flight after claiming a pair of two-set wins on Friday, and a victory against Youngstown State on Saturday.

Goodland and first-year DeeDee Leenabachong each won two matches and secured the No. 4 and 5 singles titles.

“It’s our second tournament of the season, and the girls are a young team; we have no seniors and we have three freshmen, so on a team of eight, that’s pretty difficult to come into,” said Wilds. “They have a lot to learn, but they’ve definitely been working hard on and off the court and that definitely yields the right results.”

Third-year teammate Sidnay Huck commented on the improvements the team has made, despite the challenges the young team has faced.

“I think a lot of it had to do with our mental toughness this year,” Huck said. “We’re a really young team compared to last year and I think everyone has been practicing super hard to stay mentally tough. Even though we don’t have as much experience this year, I think it’s just a lot of mental toughness and overcoming adversity.”

The team has implemented a variety of methods on and off the court to improve their mental toughness.

“A lot of practice, and a lot of practice matches that help with situational points and stuff like that,” said Huck. “We’ve done a lot of conditioning things that have helped improve our attitudes towards being mentally tough.”

Wilds also commented on the changes the team has made to improve the young team.

“I think, whether it was the conditioning, the on court, the mental game: tennis is a big mental game so we’ve added a lot of that to our practices, off court, whether it’s reading articles or just learning about the game,” Wilds said. “Definitely a lot more conditioning this year to build that stamina.”

The team is still early in the season and is looking up for the rest of the year. “I think as a team, like I said, we’re really young, and I think that like as long as we keep building as a team and working together we can go so far,” Huck said.

The Rockets will continue their fall play on Oct. 20-23 when the team travels to East Lansing, MI for the ITA Midwest Regional.