Ashley Tiefel

Senior Ashley Tiefel won the singles state championship this year, facing off against teammate senior Audrey Coventry in the finals.

“It was different,” she said. “It was tough because it’s your teammate. But it ended up being the best situation we could have been in for the rest of the team.”

Tiefel said she and Coventry grew close as they played tennis together more and more.

“She’s the nicest person you’ll ever meet,” she said. “We don’t hang out much off the court, but we know each other and see each other a lot from tennis.”

Achieving the state championship relied heavily on teamwork, and Tiefel said this benefits all the girls on the team.

She said though the girls play individually, they are all playing for the team in the end.

“As it got closer to state, us six girls that knew we were going to regionals worked really hard supporting each other in tournaments,” she said.

Tiefel took fourth place in state her sophomore year, and third in state her junior year. She said winning state as an individual and as a team was the best possible outcome.

“It was a perfect ending to my senior year,” she said. “It was so overwhelming for me to win state and have our team win, too.”

Audrey Coventry

Senior Audrey Coventry placed second individually at the          5A State tennis match. This was Coventry’s first year playing for the Tigers.

Coventry said she chose to wait until her senior year to play tennis with the school team because KSHSAA guidelines don’t allow athletes to play with their school and play outside tournaments at the same time.

“I didn’t want to sacrifice that,” she said. “I wanted to focus on getting better. Senior year, I decided that it just looked really awesome and fun and I wanted to do it.”

Coventry said she was pleased with the way she played at state. She said senior Ashley Tiefel had many specific strengths that made her hard to beat when it was time for the championship game.

“She’s very competitive and she will never give up anything easily,” Coventry said. “Even if she’s down, you have to work really hard to stay up. She’s also good at not missing — she’s very consistent. She’s also good at knowing what to do with certain people, like how to beat them and figuring out what their weaknesses are.”

Coventry said having Tiefel as a teammate helped her game progress throughout the year.

“It was really good just to be able to practice against her,” she said. “It’s always good to play against people who are better than you. That’s just how you improve the most.”