If you called UW-Whitewater’s women’s tennis team a “dynasty,” nobody would bat an eye. Heck, if you look hard enough, you might find a picture of them in the dictionary.
But that’s not how they view themselves. Not by circumstances, but by choice.
“The only thing we mention about the streak is that, at the beginning of the season, we’re not gonna mention the streak,” head coach Frank Barnes said. “All we talk about is getting ready for the next match.”
Opponents in any sport at any level demand your attention when you stand face-to-face with them – especially in tennis. Pressures flair every time you take the court. Every player and every team demands your respect. If you fail to reciprocate it, the consequences follow.
“There’s so much pressure every time you go on the court,” Barnes said. “Matches are always a grind, and there’s always pressure to beat that player that is a ‘Steady Eddie.’”
That played into UW-La Crosse’s win over the Warhawks back in late August. Sure, losing one match happens. That’s sports. That’s life.
“No one’s complaining about the loss, no one is taking it too hard,” Barnes said following the Friday, Aug. 30, 2024 match against the Eagles in a previous interview. “We’ve just got to get back to work.”
What rarely happens, however, is the women’s team losing to a conference foe. The last WIAC team that beat them during regular season play? UW-La Crosse in a 6-3 victory, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2006.
That same year, the Warhawks placed third in the WIAC Women’s Tennis Championship. This year, they added their 18th-consecutive conference title.
“It’s been the best chemistry that I can remember in a team,” Barnes said. “There has never been anything but positive energy.”
Positive energy always remains critical when building a program with the caliber of Whitewater’s. Barnes took over the men’s tennis job in 2002 and the women’s in 2003. He knows first-hand what requires a championship-caliber team. What goes into that?
“Just doing whatever you can to take a step forward,” sophomore Alex Repplier said. “Frank always tells us, ‘It’s just one more shot, one more ball on the court,’ or getting one game closer to your opponent, no matter what…whatever you can to just do one more.”
Repplier won the No. 4 singles flight along with the No. 2 doubles flight paired with junior Molly Asfeld last weekend in Madison, Wisconsin.
Amongst the other qualities that make a champion – perseverance.
With three weeks to go until the trip to Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Wisconsin’s state capital, the Warhawks found themselves without their typical No. 1 singles and doubles player, senior Cassie Lee, due to a season-ending injury. Still, the circumstance never deterred them.
“We didn’t spend any energy worrying about it,” Barnes said. “The next Monday of practice, we talked about the new doubles teams. We went forward with it…Everyone was ready to step up and go, and there’s no dwelling on it.”
Though they lost a key contributor on the court, they knew their identity:
“Every person on the team is the same. Bench players are always getting experience in matches. They all get to go to ITA (Regionals). They all get to go to spring break. We treat everyone the same in practice, everyone’s doing the same drill,” Barnes said.
Building their identity in the face of tribulation paid dividends. Having that identity centered around one cohesive unit built a fortune.
“There’s such great chemistry between all the girls…so much love for everyone. I think that just made us so much stronger,” Repplier said. “Even having all of us to have to adjust after Cassie (Lee) was taken out, I’m just very proud of how everyone fought through that, and I think every single match showed that, and every single person showed that.”
