By Rachel Zurbuch, Executive Features Editor
Varsity girls tennis placed second at the Mid Suburban League conference meet on Saturday Oct. 12 and Monday, Oct. 14. Their second place finish at the conference meet adds to their previous accomplishment of tying for second in the regular season. They also placed first in the MSL East, meaning they had the best record in their division. 
Coach Mike McColaugh is very happy for his players to have achieved this. 
“It [placing second] really snuck on everyone,” McColaugh said. “We didn’t realize it because you’re playing all over the place, and you don’t really know the points. We knew we had great finishes at all levels, but, yeah, we’re really proud …  they earned it.” 
Since the matches were held at Palatine High School, Rolling Meadows High School and Fremd High School, McColaugh can’t be at all matches all of the times, but the coaches are spread out so all the players have at least one coach there to make sure the players have support. 
Junior Alex Giannopoulos played second doubles with senior Kendall O’Malley. They finished in 3rd place. Giannopoulos likes to make sure she has a positive attitude, patience and confidence when going into games; she did this at conference, and it worked really well for her. 
“Coming in front of Fremd [High School] in the placing is just amazing,” Giannopoulos said, “and I’m really proud of my team this year. We worked really hard this year so we deserve it.” 
The team is going to start sectionals on Friday, Oct. 18. McColaugh wants the players to work as hard as they can so they can hopefully qualify for state or be in a qualifying match for State. Since they haven’t qualified in seven years, this is a big goal for him and the team. 
While they’re going to lose some seniors next year, McColaugh says that they have a lot of players coming back to get even better and keep improving, along with some new players moving to the varsity level. 
“It’s not pressure, it’s privilege to be able to play in a match that means something, so we don’t feel pressure,” McColaugh said. “We just see opportunity, and if you have the right mindset, you just go out and play, and we can handle whatever happens as long as we just go out and be ourselves.”