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Sports

Islanders Girls Tennis Face Eastlake to Begin State Title Defense

Chelsea Bailey, Nora Tan, Erica Baska and Karissa Walker will lead Mercer Island Tennis this season.

With the first season as head coach of the Mercer Island girls tennis behind her, Mindy Blakeslee is well on her way to establishing a new standard of excellence for the team. The Lady Islanders are coming off a season in which they only managed to go undefeated on their way to championships in KingCo, Districts, and eventually State.

No one can argue that Blakeslee’s opening act was an impressive one. The only question is can the encore presentation live up to the billing the first performance provided? If you talk to the right people and pay close attention to their choice of words the buzz around town is that the 2011 Islanders could be even better than their 2010 counterparts.

The Lady Islanders will open their season today, March 15 at 3:45 p.m. on the road against the Eastlake Wolves. The first home contest for Mercer Island will be two days later on St. Patrick’s Day against the Skyline Spartans.

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The Lady Islanders will have their top two stars returning. One of those stars, senior Chelsea Bailey, recently signed a letter of intent to play tennis at the next level in 2012 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The future Panther was selected as a first team All-KingCo player as a junior and has placed second in the state tournament(some years in doubles another as a singles player) in each of her three previous season on the Mercer Island tennis team. The other top tier returner is sophomore Nora Tan. Last season Tan, who was only 13 years old at the time, announced her presence in the KingCo conference with authority consistently crushing the competition on all fronts. When the dust settled Tan was named KingCo MVP and ended up placing fifth in the state tournament for singles competition.

“She’s extremely hard working," Blakeslee said. "She gets up at 5 a.m. most weekday mornings and plays whoever she can.”

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The Lady Islanders will look to their depth to replace their five departed seniors from the class of 2010. Mercer Island will look for key contributions from three particular newcomers in seniors Erica Baska and Karissa Walker as well as sophomore Sophia Gage. The trio will go a long way to make the Islanders one of the deepest teams in the league as there is no doubt that the depth that this Islander squad possesses will play to their advantage.

Although the pre-season interview with Blakeslee took place over the phone it was impossible not to see the smile on her face when she ended the call with her affirmative tone.

“I’m extremely lucky to coach such a talented group of girls,” she said.

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