When she was young, NIC-10 girls tennis champ Avery Trapp resisted being moved up at the now-defunct Forest City Tennis Center.
“My coach tried to put me in a higher class multiple times, but I didn’t enjoy it,” said Trapp, an Auburn junior who is our pick as Rockford’s girls tennis player of the year. “I wasn’t friends with them. One year, I finally made it into this really good class, with three boys and (Auburn doubles star) Rebecca Wang. We only had it for three months before the boys left. However, hitting in that class got me really inspired to play competitively and push myself to do better and go farther. After they left, I missed that and tried to go to a higher class.”
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One problem: There was big gap between the two highest junior classes. Trapp’s coach didn’t think she was ready for that level.
“I kept trying to go up to the high school boy level as an eighth-grader, but the coach kept me at the middle-school level,” Trapp said. “I got so mad once, I played this really nice girl and crushed her 6-0 in 20 minutes. After that I got moved up. That’s not a lesson that you should be petty and mean, but I was determined to prove my worth and get moved and they were trying to keep me in the lower class.”
After hitting with those three boys for three months, she began her seventh-grade year to play with older future Auburn teammates such as Wang, Addysen Feng, Amy Park and Maddy Harned.
“We’d train five days a week, go to group lessons at Boylan and hit for two hours afterward,” Trapp said. “I had a group of girls who were as good as me or better and they were all my friends and pushed me to get better.
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“I felt like I was part of the (high school) team in 7th grade when I wasn’t even on the team yet. They treated me like a little sister. I really got lucky. I made a great group of friends that also liked to play tennis.”
Trapp won NIC-10 and Class 2A sectional titles this year and finished 2-2 at state. She also went to state as a sophomore, finishing second at sectionals behind Park last year and winning the conference title at No. 2 singles.
Here are the other five singles players or doubles teams on our 2023 all-area team, with picks listed alphabetically:
Addysen Feng & Rebecca Wang, Auburn
The two seniors are two-time NIC-10 and two-time sectional champions together. Feng has won both three times, playing with Alyssa Trapp as a sophomore. They made the farthest run of any local team at state. They were seeded in the top 16 and after losing 10-8 in a super-tiebreaker for the third set — something not usually done in the championship bracket, but third sets were scrapped this year because of a rain delay — they came back to win their first three consolation matches before being eliminated.
Elizabeth Fitzgerald & Isabelle Grisanzio, Boylan
The two seniors won the Class 1A sectional title in doubles. At state, they lost their first match 10-7 in a super-tiebreaker for the third set and then defaulted in the second round.
Melissa Hillman, Rockford Lutheran
Hillman, a junior, finished second in singles at Class 1A sectionals and finished 2-2 at state, tying for the second-best local finish this year. And both of her losses were close: 4-6, 7-5 (10-6 in the super-tiebreaker) in the first round and 8-6 in an eight-game pro set in the third consolation round. Hillman’s twin sister, Megan, also went to state, placing second at sectionals in doubles.
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Mackenzie Larson & Laci Belknap, Guilford
Larson, a senior, and Belknap, a junior, finished second in the NIC-10 at No. 1 doubles and along with the championship No. 2 doubles team of Amelia Runne and Alexis Whitman led Guilford to the NIC-10 team title by less than a point over Hononegah. They also had Guilford’s top finish at sectionals, again taking second to help the Vikings beat Auburn by four points and win only their second sectional team title in 20 years.
Elle Loche, Hononegah
Loche, a junior, finished second both in the NIC-10 and in the Class 2A sectional to Trapp. She won her other three sectional matches 6-0, 6-0. She finished 0-2 at state but did take her second match into a super tie-breaker after splitting the first two sets.
Contact: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com, @matttrowbridge or 815-987-1383. Matt Trowbridge has covered sports for the Rockford Register Star for over 30 years, after previous stints in North Dakota, Delaware, Vermont and Iowa City.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Rockford girls tennis player of the year didn’t want to move up at first
