Lakewood girls tennis makes strides with new players

When Lakewood’s girls tennis team had their April 30 match against Monroe get canceled, they went to the court to practice and refine their game.

The Cougars' girls tennis team struggled with have enough members when the season started, as only seven girls, four of whom were seniors, signed up, head coach Lorne Schut said. After putting the word out, eventually the number of students participating climbed to 15. Some of the new players, who were freshmen and sophomores, had never picked up a tennis racket before.

“We’ve worked from day-one on fundamentals,” Schut said. “They’ve worked as hard as any group of athletes I’ve ever seen.”

This year, due to the pandemic, Lakewood is competing against local larger schools. Lakewood is a 2A school that normally competes in the Northwest Conference against teams mostly from Whatcom and Skagit counties. For the current year, the Cougars are in the Wesco Conference with 3A and 4A schools due to the pandemic.

Schut said the team competed well against Arlington and Monroe earlier in the season and had a team victory against Glacier Peak, which fielded mix of junior varsity and varsity players for the match.

He mentioned that senior Abigail Sieverson has a record of 5 and 2 for the season and complimented the efforts of freshman doubles players Harper Massie and Riley Westvang.

The Cougars have a busy final week of the season with a May 3 match against Marysville Getchell, a May 4 match against Monroe before concluding the season at Stanwood May 5.

“The girls are going to learn, and they’re excited about next year,” Schut said. “Every week we’ve grown, and we’ve grown. They take a lot of pride in that.”