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Free State’s Eli Ward maintained a consistent level of calm throughout her run to becoming the 2025 Sunflower League singles champion.
When Free State’s Eli Ward walks onto the court, she projects an aura of confidence and calm that does not quite vibe with what is generally expected of a freshman tennis player.
In a game that takes players, places them on opposing sides of the net before pitting them against each other in a battle that tests mental strength even more so than physical attributes, some of the most talented prodigies in the sport still spend their formative years struggling to find a peaceful approach to attacking their toughest matches.
For Ward, she’s already found a way to shake off any of those possible negative thoughts in stressful moments of play. For her, it’s not a game of “do-or-die.” Win or lose, she knows the sun will still rise tomorrow.
“So I just try my best to have fun out there,” Ward said
For anybody wondering if that might only be talk from a young player who is just trying to say the right answer in an interview, they need only to look at her recent performances on the court to see she practices the same mentality that she preaches.
During the Sunflower League girls tennis tournament last week, Ward even showed how she practices that mentality no matter how tough the opponent is lined up across the net from her.
Ward never got rattled on her way to clinching the league championship in singles on Oct. 2 at College Boulevard Activity Center in Olathe. She started the tournament with a pair of 8-1 wins before needing to defeat both Olathe Northwest singles players in her last two matches of the day.
Free State tennis coach Randy Clark said that early on this season, Ward already showed she had the ultimate steadiness in her demeanor. He found it even more impressive that she maintained that presence in the highest pressure situation so far this season.
“You can’t tell if she’s up or down, which is kind of the key in tennis,” Clark said. “Can I look across the court from five courts away, and tell if you’re up or down? She’s really good in terms of just holding that pressure and staying level-headed throughout.”
In the semifinals, Ward faced Olathe Northwest’s Heidi Baillos. The Ravens senior, who played a large role in her team winning the 6A state title last season, also started her day strong by winning both of her first two matches 8-0 before needing to pull out a tiebreaker victory in the quarterfinals. Baillos won 8-7 (2) over Olathe West senior Linsday Ruder, who had previously defeated Baillos in the 6A state quarterfinals last year.
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Free State’s Eli Ward hits a backhand shot during her finals match at the Sunflower League championship tournament Oct. 2, 2025 at College Boulevard Activity Center in Olathe.
Baillos rode the high of her revenge victory into her match with Ward, who came away impressed with her opponent’s unorthodox, yet effective, swing.
Baillos, who is noticeably smaller in stature than the other three semifinalists in the singles bracket at league, has a unique style on her ground strokes, especially with her forehand. When the ball approaches, Baillos dips down even lower than she already stands and brings her racquet up almost parallel to her jawline. Just as her swing starts getting close to making contact, she leaps into the air to add an extra explosiveness to her shot.
According to Ward, Baillos’ approach is quite effective. Ward described Baillos’ top traits as being her ability to run down the ball on any shot, while also having “very crafty shots.”
“She can just hit a winner out of like nowhere and it’s truly amazing,” Ward said. “She’s a very good player. I just kind of had to adjust to her game style and lock in and get the job done.”
Clark described Ward’s semifinal as getting “somewhat tight” halfway through the match with Baillos.
“But you know, Eli never really blinked,” Clark said. “She played her game, kept winning those big points and then kind of pulled away.”
Ward advanced with an 8-4 victory, which was the most games she had given up to an opponent in any set this season.
In the finals, Ward faced off with Baillos’ teammate Seraphine Besong. Just like Ward, Besong is a freshman who brought an equally impressive resume into the league tournament. She started the day with a 22-1 mark, with her only loss coming against Olathe North senior Diya Gupta in an 8-2 loss on Sept. 3 in a quad hosted by the Ravens.
Besong avenged that loss in her semifinal match, knocking off Gupta with a dominant 8-0 victory. But just like Baillos’ momentum following a revenge victory, Ward was able to calmly dispatch another tough foe.
Early in the match, both competitors showcased a diverse set of attacks and styles against each other. Besong specifically challenged Ward with various shots using slices and spins to keep Ward on the move and away from the baseline.
But Ward welcomed the challenge. She showed her own ability to be equally effective mixing up her style and type of shots to counter Besong.
“Normally, I do go a little bit more offensive,” Ward said. “I would say she definitely made me play a different way, and she’s a great player, a lot of respect for her. Her slices are really tough sometimes, and just throwing up lobs and stuff is not really how I play. But I had to today to get it done.”
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Olathe Northwest’s Seraphine Besong hits a backhand during her finals match against Free State’s Eli Ward.
Despite two previous competitions this season involving both Free State and Olathe Northwest, this was the first time these two freshmen have played against each other this season.
But Ward said she and Besong have crossed paths numerous times in USTA tournaments over the years.
“She has improved more than I can even explain,” Ward said. “She has made a massive jump since the first time.”
Ward said the key for her against both Olathe Northwest foes, and throughout the rest of her 16-0 start to this season, has been how she handles herself in warmups for all her matches.
She approaches the warm-up as the final step in her process to deliver the same demeanor in all her matches. Ward’s demeanor is that calm and collective one that she started to be known for and one she sports at all times, in easy matches and in hard ones, on and off the court.
“Just keeping my cool during it, not focusing too much on the score,” Ward said.
Sometimes that confidence could be viewed as a trait displayed by someone who underestimates their opponents. For Ward, it’s the opposite. In addition to always trying to remain calm, Ward said she also tries to show each of her opponents a high-level of respect on that court.
“Really just giving (Besong) the respect she earns, and going out there and playing,” Ward said.
Clark said he was impressed by Ward’s performance in this tournament, as well as throughout her strong start to her freshman campaign.
“She really hadn’t been challenged for the most part,” Clark said. “She kept her seed throughout the day, she played some really good players.”
Clark pointed out that it’s been a few years since the team had a league champion of any kind. The most recent was in 2022 when Kinley VanPelt won the singles title at league. VanPelt, a sophomore that year, also had an undefeated record which she maintained on her way to winning the 6A state title in singles that year.
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Free State head coach Randy Clark coaches up one of his players during the Sunflower League championship tournament.
Now when asked to compare the two players, Clark tried his best to copy Ward’s gameface and lob his way out of this pressing question that clearly pulled him off his baseline response.
“It’s difficult to compare players, but they have had similar success,” Clark said. “That’s where I generally stop the comparisons. But before VanPelt won her sophomore year, we hadn’t had a singles female league champion for a long time. Now suddenly, it’s a couple in four years, which is pretty impressive.”
As unrattled as she is on the court, Ward was completely ready to speak to the comparison. Not only is Ward aware of VanPelt’s similar trajectory, but she also knows her personally. She described VanPelt as a great person and a role model for herself.
“I would love to follow in our footsteps,” Ward said. “Get out there, make a little ‘Kinley’ out of myself.”
In addition to Ward’s performance at league, Free State senior Cami Lee earned a sixth-place finish in the singles bracket.
Lee picked up a pair of 8-0 victories before losing 8-4 against Besong in the quarterfinals. Her performance was an improvement from their matchup on Sept. 25 in a quad at Free State. Besong won 8-0 in that previous matchup.
After her loss to Besong at league, Lee rebounded with an 8-3 victory over Olathe East’s Mia Huettenmueller to reach the fifth-place match. There, Lee battled hard but ultimately fell 8-5 against Ruder.
While her freshman teammates are chasing perfection, Lee describes having slightly more tempered expectations for herself in the postseason.
Lee said she’s focused on trying to bring home a pair of fifth-place finishes or higher at both regionals and at state. If she can accomplish that, it will give her an achievement that she’d have in common with her older sister.
Maya Lee, a 2024 Free State graduate, earned her top state finish in her career when she took fifth in 6A singles as a senior. The younger Lee has finished ninth and 10th in singles over the last two years.
As a freshman, Lee was partnered up with sophomore 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’s record in singles this year now sits at 19-6. In addition to her losses to Besong and Ruder, she also lost to Baillos 8-6 on Sept. 13 in the Olathe South Invitational. Lee also lost to Bailos at state last year, losing 8-5 on the backside of the bracket.
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Free State’s Cami Lee extends her reach low to connect on a backhand shot during her fifth-place match at the Sunflower League championship tournament.
Clark said he was proud of how Lee kept fighting in all her league matches, including in the losses against a pair of top-five finishers from last season.
The resilience shown by Lee, that’s the exact thing Clark looks for in a strong tennis player.
“Except for the people that win the championships, everybody’s going to suffer a loss at some point,” Clark said. “So it’s about how you rebound after those losses. Do you look at it like, ‘Hey, I shouldn’t be here because I lost to somebody I shouldn’t have lost to,’ or do you take it as a challenge?
“(Lee) does a great job about embracing those challenges and using that to her advantage.”
For Lee, a lot of that mindset stems from her feeling lucky to be healthy enough to keep competing.
Lee has battled through multiple injuries, including two knee surgeries. She also saw as VanPelt’s early takeover of the 6A singles field never had any repeat performances as various injuries prevented her from competing in other high school season during her four years at Free State.
More recently, Lee experienced her older sister, who has spent the last two years as a member of the Kalamazoo College women’s tennis program, suffering a torn ACL for the second time, an injury which Lee described as essentially a career-ending injury for Maya.
“She also had a lot of issues with her wrists and all that stuff, so that was difficult for her,” Lee said. “She’s done playing tennis, which is really unfortunate.”
Seeing how those injuries affected her own sister and another teammate has clearly helped Lee shape the way she’s approached her final season of high school tennis.
“I have no more injuries at the moment, knock on wood,” Lee said. “So I think from here I’m just going to keep going and I can go at my full 100%. I was playing at maybe 80% these last two years.”
With Free State seniors Taryn Jones and Annie Pilakowski taking 10th place to earn the team’s top doubles finish, the Firebirds ultimately took fourth in the team race at league.
Olathe Northwest won the league title for the second straight season. Shawnee Mission East, which dominated the Sunflower League tournament for more than a decade until the Ravens broke through last year, finished as the runner-up while Olathe West took third.
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Free State’s Annie Pilakowski, right, walks up toward the net alongside her doubles partner Taryn Jones during their ninth-place match at the Sunflower League championship tournament.
Jones and Pilakowski head into regionals with a 19-6 record as a pair this season. Pilakowski reached state as a single competitor last year alongside Lee. After a 6-4, 6-2 loss against Blue Valley North’s Prisha Dalal in the opening round, Pilakowski picked up an 8-4 victory in her next match before an 8-6 loss to Junction City’s Hannah Micheel ended her state performance.
Free State’s other doubles team of seniors Violet Nelson and Laura Turner lost to the same Olathe West duo of Chloe Sell and Sophie Lewis, but Nelson and Turner were not able to respond with a win after that.
Clark acknowledged that his doubles teams ended up feeling disappointed with their results.
“I think they’ve learned some things today that will help them next week and put them in a good spot, hopefully to be in a position to qualify for state.
“I know they would like to have won some of those matches, but that’s how sports goes.”
Clark said he’s excited about what the team can do at regionals, especially in regards to Ward’s continued pursuit of a perfect season.
“Eli’s had a great year and a great season, and she’s competed really well,” Clark said. “I’m excited to see what she does next week, which is going to be against a lot of similar opponents. And then hopefully in a few weeks at state, when she’ll see some additional (top) players.”
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Free State’s Taryn Jones hits a backhand volley during the Sunflower League championship tournament.
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Free State’s Eli Ward holds up her Sunflower League championship post after winning the singles title during the league championship tournament.
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Free State’s Cami Lee prepares to hit a forehand shot during a match at the Sunflower League championship tournament.
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Free State’s Taryn Jones hits a forehand shot during a match at the Sunflower League championship tournament.
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Free State’s Annie Pilakowski hits a forehand shot during a match at the Sunflower League championship tournament.
