Woodburn girls tennis continue growth under second-year head coach

It only took most of their lives, but Tonalli and Quetzalli Carlos are finally gracing the court together.

The sisters have been a part of the girls tennis program at Woodburn all throughout high school, growing their respective love for the sport side-by-side.

Well, maybe not always necessarily ‘side-by-side.’ Until this year, that is, as the duo have linked together for the first time in competition as doubles partners for Tonalli’s senior year.

“We used to play volleyball, then my mom, she just put us into a tennis clinic and ever since then it kind of clicked,” Quetzalli Carlos said. “My dad, in Mexico, he was a ball boy and then my mom played tennis a little bit in high school.”

Although the pairing is relatively fresh, the sisters have found moderate success thus far and — along with Nora Perez, Jamie Schiedler and Galilea Lopez — are helping lay the foundation for a cultural shift at Woodburn under the helm of second-year head coach Tom Lonergan.

“I have a great group of girls here,” Lonergan said. “They’re fun to work with and they want to win — that’s been the main thing, trying to change the culture.”

“I want them to compete and feel good about everything but be disappointed if they don't play up to their ability,” Lonergan added. “That's what I think is happening a little bit with these girls.”

Lonergan’s time with the girls has been short thus far but his experience stretches back decades. He grew up in Woodburn and spent well over 30 years at the forefront of the boys program. Though his time with the girls has been brief, the growth is evident.

Beyond the continued growth of returnees and continuity in coaching, Woodburn’s enjoyed an additional wrinkle from its exchange students.

“I think something special about this year especially is the exchange students that we have here,” Tonalli said. “Marta (Avellaneda) from Spain, Franzi (Hagmann) from Austria and then Elisa (Trionfetti) from Italy. It's really nice to get to know the people that live across the world. It's totally different.”

“Back in Spain, I was stressed with tennis,” Avellaneda added. “And here, I started enjoying it because I made friends. I like the coach. I like being at practice. So that's what helped me — just enjoying what I'm doing and not thinking I have to do it.”

New beginnings

Once Lonergan retired from teaching at Woodburn High School, he noticed the number of boys participating in tennis had begun to dwindle. Since he no longer had daily interactions with the student body, it made recruiting and convincing kids to go out for the team rather difficult.

Gone were the days when Lonergan easily fielded 25 athletes. And while the boys’ numbers stagnated, the girls’ program seemed to have little issue pooling athletes.

“First day of practice, there’d be 40 girls out here,” Lonergan said. “That's when I decided to switch over, because just to start there's a lot more girls to work with.”

It helped that Lonergan had already begun working with some of the girls in the offseason, notably investing time with the Carlos sisters in the summer. The challenge of sending a girl to the state championships for the first time since 1994 also proved intriguing.

“The goal was to try to get a girl to state,” Lonergan said. “(Perez) came within a set last year of going … it’s going to be tough. If we get somebody there (this year), they’ll have to play very well and they’ll have to kind of pull some upsets. I definitely think it’s possible.”

Despite not feeling her best recently, Perez believes that she’s still having a “great” year and will remain in the hut as a singles player.

“I’ve improved a lot since last year,” Perez said. "And I can feel my confidence getting better.”

“If (Perez is) going to make it to state, it’s got to be her confidence,” Lonergan added. “She has improved on that. She just has to keep doing it.”

Meanwhile, the team of Schiedler and Lopez likely hold the best possibility of qualifying for the state championships. The duo was paired for the first time this season after Lopez, a senior, spent the last two years as a singles competitor. With the ultimate aspiration of sending an athlete to state, the pairing just made sense.

"Toward the end of the year we have districts to determine if we go to state, and (last year) we struggled a lot getting some of our girls to state,” Lopez said. “This year, our coach thought it was a lot easier to put some of our strong players together to make sure we get a chance to get to state and that's our top goal right now.”

“I’m really focused on us and just doing the best we can,” Schiedler added. “I know it's her last year, so I want it to be about her and take her further than last year.”