By DAVID WOOD, for The Democrat
With an even record of 3-3, the Brown County girls varsity tennis team looked to improve on April 17 with their match against longtime opponent Bedford North Lawrence.
The Eagles narrowly lost 2-3 to the Stars in a highly contested best of five, dropping their overall record into the negative.
Head Coach Thom Miller remained positive. “Bedford has been a great matchup for us over the past five years. It’s gone 2-3 or 3-2 every other time,” he said.
“There were things that I saw that we need to work on to improve, but tonight, we were outplayed. … They had a good team.”
Brown County still managed to beat Bedford in singles 2-1. Senior Hallee Miller and freshman Julia Williams, playing in the top two singles slots, both won their matches.
Hallee Miller, team captain and the 18-year-old daughter of Head Coach Thom Miller, felt like she played okay despite batting illness. She believed her consistency and positivity to be driving reasons behind her success.
“One of my biggest downfalls is that I get really angry and down on myself, but today I was pretty positive and felt really good about it,” she said.
“I think it’s expected that I definitely keep a positive attitude and play my hardest to keep my team pumped up. I think that’s working really well,” she said.
Coach Miller said his daughter only wants the best for her team. “I really don’t have to motivate her very often; she’s pretty self-motivated and wants her team to do well,” he said.
Navigating his relationship with her as a parent and coach is tricky, he said, but he’s glad to have that opportunity. “I think that she handles it really well. … I’m pretty blessed and fortunate to be able to have worked with her this amount of time,” he said.
In regard to the entire team, Coach Miller said a few games could have gone either way, but he remains hopeful in regard to the rest of the season.
“We’re 3-4. We’ve had a couple of losses that could be wins, and we’ve had a couple wins that could be losses,” he said. “We’re still tying to get into a good rhythm. I do think we have an outstanding group of young ladies that work hard. I’m hopeful that we’ll start pulling things together pretty quickly and have success in the rest of our season.”
