From Oct. 24-26, North’s girls tennis team competed in the state competition at John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights. Two doubles teams, senior Shannon Lu with sophomore Danielle Dejanovich, as well as junior Reese Thomas with senior Maddie Zubel, competed over three days to culminate the season. North finished with a total of 6 points in a 5-way tie for 25th place.
During the season, coach Sean Masoncup led practices that aimed to prepare the girls for sectionals and the state competition.
“Our coach is great, he runs all the practices, he runs all the drills, he gives us tips and I wouldn’t be in the position I am now without him,” said Zubel.
Practices were also stress-free.
“He keeps it really light-hearted, which is good for a lot of us to get out of a negative mindset,” said Lu.
A big motivator was this season being the last one at North for both Lu and Zubel.
“I know that making it to state last year was a big thing for me, and I definitely wanted to be able to do that again this year and just prove to myself that I was able to do it again, especially with this being my senior season,” said Zubel.
Lu agrees with Zubel’s sentiment.
“I think for me, a big motivation was it being my last year and doing even better,” said Lu.
As sectionals approached, Masoncup continued to help the players with their skills. Some of the biggest aspects were playing against each other, volleys and communication.
To qualify for state, the team had to have one of the top four doubles teams and one of the top four singles players during the sectional tournament. Once the state competition approached, there were 64 singles players and 64 doubles teams. The competition worked like a bracket as winning teams slowly moved down and the bracket shrank. According to ihsa.org, Shannon and Danielle finished in the top 10 at the state tournament.
“I thought we performed really well. When you go up against the best teams in the state of Illinois and you come on top more than you don’t, I think that’s a testament to the girls and how hard they worked, and I thought it was a pretty successful weekend,” said Masoncup.
Some parts of the girls’ playing that stood out to him were the consistency of the team, the way the girls worked together and their effort.
“[I loved] the consistency of our girls, of how hard they played and really working together as double teams, both of them,” said Masoncup.
According to Lu and Zubel, getting to go to the state competition was ultimately a really fun experience.
“I felt proud of myself that my partner and I had made it that far, and I was just trying to have fun in the last couple of moments of my tennis career,” said Zubel.
In the end, Masoncup really enjoyed his team’s effort this season.
“I thought that they really worked well together, and at the end of the day, they had a really great time and showed that St. Charles North is one of the best tennis schools in the state of Illinois,” said Masoncup.
