WELLINGTON, Fla. — For the first time in school history, the Wellington girls tennis team competed at the Florida state championships.
"All year, you have challenge matches where your top five play singles, and then you play doubles matches," assistant coach Peter Lang said. "As you go through the season, especially this season, we were 12-2 before the post-season started."
Both Lang and Josh McElwain were in their first season coaching at the school.
Wellington High School had previously experienced success on the tennis court through individual accomplishments, such as Scarlett Stephens' impressive performance at the state level in her freshman and sophomore years.
"We've never been [to the state championships] as a whole team before ever," Stephens, a junior, said.
Wellington's top five players are three freshmen and two juniors. They demonstrated their exceptional skills this week in Orlando at the state championships, facing off against the formidable back-to-back state champions Miami Palmetto.
The girls lost the match but said getting that far was a testament to the team's promising future.
"It was a very tough school that we had played, so not a lot of people had won their matches," junior Keira Utera said.
Gracious in defeat, this season's success will fuel them for next year.
"Not a lot of freshmen have this chance to play on the team and also to be able to play on such a great team," freshman Raya Dittfurth said.
"We put in the hard work, and we put in the hours as a team. One hundred percent next year, we've got it," freshman Laasya Movva said.
