The Talawanda girls tennis team the championship of the Southwest Ohio Conference last Friday, the perfect cap to a 15-1 season which started with the team thinking it was in a rebuilding mode following the graduation of six seniors.

Talawanda swept the head-to-head matches with league opponents in the regular season, winning five of the six by 5-0 scores and winning 4-1 over Wilmington.

The SWOC championships were held at Wilmington and Talawanda captured league titles in two of three singles divisions and both doubles.

Junior Rachel Morton won the first singles title after entering the tournament with a 6-0 regular-season SWOC record and 16-4 overall. Junior captain Deanna Whalen was the second singles champion and entered play Friday with a 6-0 league mark, 20-1 overall.

The first doubles team of seniors Mariah Davis and Jennifer Schuppie and entered play last Friday at 6-0 and 11-8, and the second doubles team of freshman Katie Curry and junior Becca Lockhart were 6-0 and 13-5.

Taking third place was third singles player sophomore Sarah Lockhart, who was 5-1 and 17-5 in the regular season. Also playing some doubles this year in regular-season matches was sophomore Audrey Lipps.

Two team losses in the Coaches Classic on Sept. 20 may have helped the Talawanda squad. Whalen said the team has not had a lot of losses this season, but those two reminded the team to be aggressive and paid off in the SWOC championship.

Coach Pete Thomas agreed. “The losses cost us the D Flight championship (at the coaches Classic), but that was not a big goal. I think the losses really helped (at the SWOC tournament),” Thomas said. “We needed to get our spirit back. We were playing not to lose.”

“We thought this would be more of a rebuilding year after we lost six seniors last year,” said Whalen, “but we turned out to be really dominant. We are a fairly young team, so we have a strong future.”

The 5-0 loss to Loveland Aug 16 was the only one, as of Tuesday, heading into Wednesday’s sectional tournament.

That success has Thomas thinking of upping the ante next year.

“The challenge with 15-1 is that I’ve got to make the schedule harder,” he said. “It’s unacceptable to me to have that record. It means I’m not finding enough top competition.”

The first doubles team of Davis and Schuppie found success in a sport they had not played until their freshman year after deciding in eighth grade they would join the tennis team and play together.

“We were pretty much clueless,” Davis said. “We did not know how to keep score.”

Hard work and friendship made up for that, however, along with joining a team willing to accept them and teach them.

Schuppie agreed, saying, “Everyone is willing to help out, show techniques or strokes.”

Thomas said the key to the success of this year’s team is intense off-season work.

“In the off-season, they really reinvented themselves,” Thomas said. “With only two seniors (this year), it will make forming the top seven difficult next year with great players coming up. We’re building a small dynasty here.”