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Free State’s Eli Ward hits a forehand during her state championship finals match. Ward capped off her freshman season with an undefeated record at 24-0 by winning the KSHSAA 6A girls tennis state title in singles.
OLATHE — In a year with 34 of 72 state qualifying players at the KSHSAA 6A girls tennis state tournament being seniors, four freshmen made up six of the spots on the court for the two championship matches held to decide the state champions for singles and doubles.
Two of those freshmen left with a state title under their belt.
But only one of those freshmen left with an unblemished record, completing a 24-0 campaign to win the 6A state title in singles.
Free State’s Eli Ward was only one who could make that claim after earning a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Olathe Northwest freshman Seraphine Besong in the finals on Oct. 18 at College Boulevard Activity Center in Olathe.
Ward was alone in that feat, but she was far from alone on the journey to accomplish that. She spent her first season of high school tennis, and her first semester of public school after being homeschooled prior to this year, with a slew of senior teammates right by her side.
Along with those teammates, Ward helped lead Free State to a state runner-up finish, tying the best result in the program’s history.
Olathe Northwest had clearly locked up the team title with 38 points on the strength of three semifinalist entries. Free State scored 30 points to take state runner-up. Blue Valley North pulled out a third-place finish with 25 points.
Senior Cami Lee earned a seventh-place finish as Free State’s other singles competitor, while seniors Taryn Jones and Annie Pilakowski closed out their careers with a ninth-place finish in doubles.
Free State head coach Randy Clark marveled at the performance by all of his players at state.
“This was truly a team finish and runner-up is pretty special,” Clark said. “I’ve been doing this for a while. We’ve been fourth and fifth several times, but we’ve never gotten in that top three. For these girls to do it, they should feel pretty special about themselves. Great tournament, great season.”
This year’s team tied the program’s best finish from when Free State also earned a state runner-up trophy in 2002. The Firebirds were also led by a strong trio of seniors that year, with Emily Wang winning a state title in singles and Emily Loewen and Lacey Luina winning a state title in doubles. The team actually tied Blue Valley North for the most points at state that year with 32, but the Mustangs took home the state championship via the tiebreaker rules.
Just as the 2002 state title was decided by how all the players fared on the backside of the bracket, Free State’s runner-up finish this year was made possible by the very same thing.
“We don’t get runner-up unless all three entrants, both of our singles players and (Free State’s doubles team) all contribute,” Clark said. “Otherwise, we don’t end up in this position.”
Of course, a majority of the team’s points still needed to come from Ward following through on her promise as the frontrunner in singles.
To reach the finals, Ward had to battle Olathe Northwest’s other singles player, senior Heidi Baillos, during the state semifinals. Ward had previously defeated Baillos 8-4 in the Sunflower League semifinals. Those four games were the most Ward had conceded to an opponent in a set to that point in the season.
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Free State’s girls tennis players and coaches pose for a photo with the team’s 6A state runner-up trophy.
When they met again in the regional semifinals, Ward pulled off a 6-2, 6-0 win. By the time they met one last time in the state semifinals, Ward took down Baillos with a 6-1, 6-0 victory.
It ended up being in the regional finals where Ward had the toughest challenge, at least by game count.
Ward needed to pull out a 6-4, 6-3 win over Olathe North senior Diya Gupta in that one to bring home the regional crown. These two ended up not matching up before, or after, that moment because Gupta spent this year trading victories with Olathe Northwest freshman phenom in Besong, who responded to an 8-2 loss in their first match by earning a 8-0 victory over Gupta in the Sunflower League semifinals.
Besong took control early in their rematch in the regional semifinals with a 6-1 first set, only for Gupta to dominate the next two sets on the way to a 1-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory and setting the meeting with Ward in those finals.
It would be Besong and Gupta again in the semifinals at state. This time, it was Gupta who fired out to a strong start with a 6-1 opening set, only for her opponent to rally. In what became a three-plus hour marathon of a match, Besong overcame Gupta with a 1-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
This ended up creating a long wait time for Ward, who had to find ways to keep both her mental focus and physical preparation ready for the finals, which would not start for another hour after Besong finally burst out into celebration of her momentous victory in the semis.
After their previous match in the Sunflower League finals, an 8-2 victory for Ward, she credited Besong with dictating the action and forcing Ward to alter her traditional game plan in order to counter Besong’s myriad of slices, spins and strong impulse to attack at the net.
But in these state finals, it was Ward who committed to forcing Besong away from the baseline.
“I would say so I was just trying to move her a little more, see how fatigued she was and see what shots would work today vs. the last time,” Ward said.
Besong managed to keep nearly every point interesting, but Ward methodically put away point after point, game after game on the way to a 6-1, 6-0 victory.
In nearly every rematch for Ward this year, she tightened the grip on the final game count. The only match where that did not quite play out that way was with her quarterfinals match against Olathe West senior Lindsay Ruder. Ward earned a 8-3 victory over Ruder back on Sept. 16 in the Blazer Invitational at Gardner Edgerton High School. In their rematch at state, Ward earned a 6-3, 6-1 win.
Ward started her state performance with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Shawnee Mission East sophomore Ilah Hull.
When asked how she felt completing her undefeated freshman campaign and winning the 6A state title in singles, her response remained as controlled as her attitude on the court.
“Great,” Ward said. “I’m really happy right now.”
Now, this is not really an uncommon response from a teenager, even after accomplishing an uncommon feat such as Ward’s.
But oftentimes, these young champions are clearly just trying to avoid saying the wrong thing. So they try to downplay their excitement level, only for their wide-eyed expression and the enthusiasm in their voice to give away the truth.
The truth is usually that they don’t really have any of the necessary words to describe their uncontainable level of excitement. The truth is that the most accurate description of how they feel about accomplishing this amazing feat would be less of coherent response than it would be them just running around in circles while letting out eardrum-shattering screams of unbridled joy.
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Free State’s Eli Ward hits a backhand during her championship finals match.
But unlike most of those others players in this situation, Ward delivers the line as a tempered response. She maintains a level of calm and confidence that few players have as seniors, let alone as freshmen.
It’s also a confidence that her dad said he did not really start to see in her until this last year.
Jared Ward said it was during a tournament over spring break in Tucson, Arizona, earlier this year when he really started to notice this new confidence taking shape with Eli.
“She came through and ended up winning in doubles, but you just saw the confidence bloom,” Jared said. “She’s been so composed. It’s been really, really fun to just watch that maturity.”
Jared added that he thinks his daughter competing on a team full of seniors has also played a huge role in that continued development of confidence.
“I think the team’s had a lot to do with it, between (the players) and both coaches being so supportive. I think it’s gone a long way to helping her feel comfortable in any situation.”
Even before she joined the team, Ward had already been practicing year round with Free State’s other state qualifiers.
Jared said that Cami Lee specifically has taken Eli under her wing and their close friendship off the court has played a sizable role in Eli wasting little time adapting to high school life.
“I think that kind of senior leadership, more than anything that we can do as parents, really has helped everything progress the way it did,” Jared said.
But for as much of a role as the Firebirds’ seniors have played in Eli developing that confidence, those same teammates are equally as surprised by how much their freshman teammate already had that swagger from her first day stepping on campus.
Pilakowski said that Ward was more confident than most of her high school classmates, and not just the freshmen.
“She didn’t come into it being like a scared little freshman,” Pilakowski said. “She was like, ‘I’m Eli and I’m awesome.’”
Jones went a step further with her tongue-in-cheek description of Ward’s swagger: “No person who’s gone to public school all of their life is that confident.”
Jones joked that maybe they needed to have bullied Ward in order to give her a more authentic experience of attending a public high school.
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Free State’s Eli Ward poses for photos while holding the team’s state runner-up trophy and in front of her state championship placard recognizing her winning the 6A state title in singles.
After hearing her teammates make their jokes about her confidence level, Ward fired back when answering a question about what was the toughest part of her transition from being homeschooled to attending Free State as a freshman this fall.
“(My teammates) totally bullied me,” Ward said with a laugh. “They would give me swirlies in the bathroom.”
But when her jokes were through, Ward also made sure to credit her teammates with helping her make such a smooth transition to attending public high school, helping her build the confidence that translated to both the classroom and on the court.
“I was pretty nervous at the beginning of the year to jump into that atmosphere, but my teammates made it really easy to get comfortable quick,” Ward said. “They’re great people. They’re super nice, so they just kind of accepted me and were just like, ‘Well, now we’re teammates.’”
To be clear, her teammates were aiming for hyperbole rather than farce with their jokes about Ward and her confidence. It was truthfully Ward’s confidence that was the main thing noted by her teammates as what stood out about her since the first day she arrived at Free State.
“Every time I talk to anybody, they’re like, ‘There’s no way she’s a freshman,’” Lee said. “She doesn’t look like a freshman, she doesn’t sound like a freshman.”
Even at state, Lee said she overheard people who were trying to identify which one of the Free State players was the freshman with the No. 1 seed in the singles bracket.
“They thought I was ‘the freshman,’” Lee said. “So I think it’s always funny talking to her about that. It’s been fun to see her kind of grow up. I’ve been around her my whole life.”
Lee referenced knowing Ward all her life because despite the fact that Ward had been homeschooled until attending Free State this year, she had interacted with Ward over the years while practicing in the Jayhawk Tennis Center at Rock Chalk Park.
Ward’s parents also happen to have spent the last decade working there as certified tennis instructors by the United States Professional Tennis Association, or USPTA. Jared and Christy Ward have been instrumental in developing a High Performance Program at that facility, which has turned into a full-time academy that draws some of the best players in the entire Missouri Valley region.
Christy works with the program’s younger players, who will hopefully continue to advance their skills into their teenage years and eventually work with Jared.
Eli Ward spent her youth honing her tennis game at this facility, while also getting to watch, work with and compete against players like Lee, her older sister Maya and even another eventual 6A state champion for Free State in Kinley VanPelt.
Kinley VanPelt had her own experience of instantly putting the entire 6A field on notice in her first year of high school tennis. As a sophomore for Free State, VanPelt went undefeated on her way to winning the 6A state title in singles back in 2022.
VanPelt’s feat was immediately compared to that of her aunt Brittany Dietz (Carvalhido), who finished her high school career at Osborne with four state championships and a 149-0 record.
Instead, VanPelt, who had previously missed her freshman season in part because of an injury, never ended up suiting up for the Firebirds in either of her final two years of high school. VanPelt currently plays for the University of Kansas women’s tennis team, where she continues to develop her game at the Jayhawk Tennis Center.
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Free State’s Eli Ward talks with her dad during a long wait for a state semifinals to conclude, which would decide her opponent for the championship finals match.
But even more than just developing her game alongside the Wards there, these two players have an even deeper connection.
Jared Ward and Kinley’s father Vance VanPelt were roommates while playing tennis at Bethel College in Newton.
Right after Eli’s state championship win, Vance texted Jared to congratulate the Wards.
Jared and Vance have remained close, even having a conversation last week alongside Vance’s father talking about what it would mean if Eli was able to match Kinley’s undefeated state championship season.
“For that connection to now be there forever is kind of cool,” Jared said.
That quickly turns the question to whether Eli will also be one-and-done, or will she return for a season, or two or three, to lead the way for the Firebirds.
“I’m definitely looking forward to, if I choose to play again, having this first win under my belt and then seeing the new players next year, the returning players, and just seeing what I can do,” Ward said.
Ward said it was the idea of playing with these teammates she’s known for a while that was the big draw for her to join the team in the first place.
“My team is a big one for me,” Ward said. “Since it is my freshman year, I’m trying to make some friends. Really, just the biggest thing was the team atmosphere. To be in that, that’s why I was really excited.”
With most of the team graduating, Ward might end up deciding her best path forward in her tennis career will be to focus on the regional and national tournaments outside of the high school season.
From a dad’s perspective, Jared thinks it’s probably too soon for his daughter to make that decision.
“As far as that goes, it’s a little too early,” Jared said. “We’ll see how this experience shapes things. Maybe she comes back and wants to help the team, help others the way that she was helped out this year. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Either way, Jared said he appreciated how the team and the Free State community has treated the Wards to this point.
“Everybody’s been awesome to us,” Jared said. “From that standpoint, we couldn’t ask for more. Hopefully we contributed to the community as well. But we’re grateful to all of the other parents on the team and the coaches were fantastic, working with her and us.”
For Eli, the biggest draw might end up being the experience of not just playing alongside her close friends, but also having an entire community around the team cheering on her performances every time she takes to the court.
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Free State’s team of freshman Eli Ward and seniors, Cami Lee, Annie Pilakowski and Taryn Jones pose with the team’s state runner-up trophy, while each also bites down on their individual state medals.
“It was actually unlike anything I’ve ever had before,” Ward said of having not only a Free State section, but a positive crowd full of people supporting players from other teams as well. “It’s really amazing having that atmosphere around with people just there to support. There’s really no one here that’s just negative. They’re all just cheering for their person and it’s really cool atmosphere to be in.”
That crowd got to watch all the other players at state, including the Firebirds’ three seniors, battle their way through the bracket and to their own finishes.
One such well-deserved finish was that earned by Lee. As a four-year state qualifier, Lee had her eyes on claiming her best state finish to date. She accomplished just that.
As a freshman, Lee was partnered up with a sophomore in Zoe Cachiguango-Latta. The duo earned a third-place finish at regionals and won their opening round match at state before losing back-to-back tiebreakers to end their state trip early.
Lee reached the ninth-place match in singles as a sophomore and junior. After taking 10th in 2023, she took ninth last year.
Although she had her eyes on bringing home a fifth-place finish to match her sister’s best result, Lee had to alter those plans a little bit after losing the round she needed to advance to the fifth-place match, falling 8-1 to Blue Valley North freshman Penelope Reed. Reed’s only losses this season were against Olathe Northwest’s top singles players, 8-6 against Baillos early in the year and 6-3, 6-3 against Besong in the state quarterfinals.
In addition to that result against Reed sending her to the seventh-place match, Lee would also end up going against a familiar foe who she’s had trouble with in the past.
Olathe West’s Lindsay Ruder ended up losing in that same round, falling 8-3 against Topeka senior Madeline Deters.
When they were sophomores in 2023, Lee had lost to Ruder twice in the postseason. Ruder got the best of her by 8-0 at Sunflower League that year, followed by a 6-4, 6-2 result at regionals.
They only played once as juniors, but Ruder also won that match 8-2 during a tournament in the regular season.
This year, Ruder added another one to her win column with an 8-5 victory over Lee at the Sunflower League tournament, and again with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Lee at regionals. Both of those were in fifth-place matches.
Not only was she sitting at 0-5 against Ruder for their entire high school careers, Lee also felt like Ruder was an inherited rival.
“She was my sister’s rival,” Lee said. “Maya kind of passed it down to me.”
Maya Lee and Ruder played against each other six times over two seasons, including five times during Maya’s senior campaign in 2023.
Maya won the first four of their matches without giving up more than two games in a set. But Ruder turned things around during their third-place match at regionals, pulling out a 6-4, 6-4 win.
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Free State’s Cami Lee turns to flash a smile at her teammates and other Free State supporters in the stands following her win the seventh-place match at state.
When they met again at state, Maya found a way to close out their rivalry with another victory. She defeated Ruder 8-3 to advance to the fifth-place match, which Lee also won to earn the best state finish of her career.
Cami Lee already secured the best state finish of her career entering her match with Ruder, but she still went into the seventh-place match knowing she didn’t want to end her high school career on a loss.
To do that, it would require Lee to not only put all of her previous losses against Ruder out of her mind, but to do the same with her previous loss that day.
“In one of these tournaments, you have to have a short-term memory, in the sense that if you suffer a loss, you can’t let it impact your next match,” Clark said. “She faced somebody that she’d lost to several times, but she had that mindset that she’s playing really well, which she was and that in this tournament, there were very few players that were playing as well and that could beat her.
“She was in this position to play somebody that she wanted to get a little retribution on. She played really well and she really, from the get go, was up and never let Ruder get back in that match. She did a great job.”
Clark said that it takes a winner’s mindset to accomplish what Lee did.
“Facing somebody you lost to a lot, but you have that mindset that you can beat her and today’s that day,” Clark said.
Clark saw a similar “winner’s mindset” from Jones and Pilakowski as his doubles team at state.
Jones and Pilakowski picked up a 6-3, 6-2 in their opening round match at state against Dodge City seniors Addisyn Taylor and Emma Bell. Then they earned arguably their biggest win of the tournament, winning 6-4, 7-5 over the No. 6 seed in Shawnee Mission Northwest’s duo of senior Abby O’Connor and sophomore Nia Nightingale. Jones and Pilakowski could not keep their momentum going in the quarterfinals, losing 6-1, 6-4 against Shawnee Mission East seniors Catherine Beltrame and Isabella Broce, who would eventually finish in third place.
“They put themselves in a good position in that draw,” Clark said. “Then (they) suffered a tough loss in the first match (of Day 2). But then they really battled back after that.”
As Clark mentioned, the duo did not start quite as strong on Day 2. In the team’s first match back out on the court, they lost 8-1 against Derby senior Karlie Demel and freshman Katie Brehm.
“We just kind of get in our heads and then we don’t play like us,” Jones said. “But then we just got to play like us and that’s what we did. We just got to keep our energy up and we did that.”
Pilakowski said that it was the duo’s second match of the Day 2 when they found themselves again.
“Coming off the loss, we just decided to come in with more energy,” Pilakowski said.
Jones quickly added: “Just don’t let (the loss) get us down.”
Pilakowski continued: “Just take each match at a time.”
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Free State’s Annie Pilakowski and Taryn Jones pose with the team’s state runner-up trophy. While her other teammates often feigned biting down their medals as Pilakowski did here, Jones continued to enthusiastically bite down on hers throughout the team’s post-state celebrations.
Jones and Pilakowski earned an 8-3 win over Olathe West seniors Emory Roseman and Averee Henshaw to reach the ninth-place match. In their last match, they replicated that previous 8-3 result going up against Manhattan seniors Keylee Schartz and Jackie Hsu.
With Lee, Jones and Pilakowski combining for 14 points to add to Ward’s 16 points for winning the singles bracket, Free State was able to rack up enough points to finish in second place.
Lee said it was “awesome” bringing home this state runner-up trophy with this group of seniors, plus a freshman whose future might rest away from the high school tennis season.
“We’ve played four years, this is Eli’s last year,” Lee said, somehow not noticing, or at least not responding to, the look of shock on Ward’s face. Ward tried to non-verbally communicate to Lee by moving her hand back and forth near her neck in the universal signal to “kill that,” in an apparent attempt to tell her teammate to cut off her answer on this topic.
Lee continued anyway: “It’s kind of like we’re all seniors at this point. By us finishing that and getting second, that’s insane. It’s the best that our school’s ever done, so that’s really cool.”
Lee is right that Pilakowski, Jones and herself will all finish their final high school seasons with a victory in their final matches and the memory of celebrating on the court together with the team’s state runner-up trophy.
And she might even be right that that description will end up being the same one used to describe Ward’s high school tennis career.
But for now, Ward also still has the potential of adding three more years to what was already a perfect freshman campaign with the Firebirds. If she does decide to play on the team in future seasons, we can all be confident that Ward will be the 6A favorite once again.
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Free State’s girls tennis players get ready to pose for a photo while Cami Lee is unable to stop smiling.
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Free State’s Taryn Jones attempts a volley at the net during one of her matches at state.
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Free State’s Annie Pilakowski attempts a volley at the net during one of her matches at state.
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Free State’s Cami Lee hits a forehand during one of her matches at state.
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Free State’s Eli Ward hits a forehand during one of her matches at state.
