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A grueling schedule can defeat even the best of teams, and the Chisago Lakes girls tennis team ran the gauntlet last week, and came out battered and bruised, but with their heads up.

The girls had three straight matches against three of the best the North Suburban Conference has to offer.

They were shutout 7-0 by Benilde-St. Margaret's, Spring Lake Park and Robbinsdale Cooper en route to an 0-3 week.

"We just completed the toughest part of our tennis season," Head Coach Steve Otte said. "Looking at the schedule back in August, I knew that these three matches would be real tough match ups for the team.

"The team's goal this year was to have fun and work on the small things that would make us better. The small things that we continue to work on are serving, returning, and volleying. The team as improved a lot from the beginning of the year and the Wildcats are still working hard to improve even more."

Otte noted that special credit be served to Kelsey Ristow, Ali Turnquist, Leah Lackas, and Cailin Engstrom for playing singles for the team this year. "There are matches where they were simply over powered on the court but they all keep working hard and competing in every match they play," he said.

He also said that the doubles teams have come a long. "I am so impressed with their play this past week. We didn't win at doubles, but they competed and played doubles the way it should be played," he noted. "They are now attacking the net and ending points a lot sooner than they were two weeks ago. If they had played this well at the beginning of the season they would have won a lot of those doubles matches."

The girls wrap up their North Suburban Conference meets by hosting another tough squad, Totino Grace, tonight, Sept. 25 at 4 p.m.

After that, the girls will play in the NSC tournament on Saturday, and then finish the regular season with a match against Cambridge-Isanti on Thursday, Oct. 2.

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