The Lady Trojans pose for a Hoosier North Athletic Conference championship team pic after winning titles at three positions at the HNAC Tournament finale in Knox Thursday. (Photos by James Costello)

KNOX — With an even mix of five seniors and five freshmen on this year’s Triton girls tennis team, it’s been up to the Lady Trojans’ upperclassmen to show the way to their young teammates. As far as their conference is concerned, those seniors couldn’t have set a better example.

Triton’s tennis team backed up a Hoosier North Athletic Conference championship three-peat with titles in three of five positions at Thursday’s HNAC Tournament-capper in Knox, securing titles at the 1 singles and at both doubles positions as the seniors went out on top.

“The seniors really stepped up the most. I’m going to miss them because all four years they really have played well,” said Triton coach Al Peckham.

“It’s just been a fun season with these girls. Five seniors, five freshmen, trying to mix them together. It had some challenges, but it went really well.”

Kolbie Mason hits a forehand slice shot during her 1 singles championship match.

It’s often said in sports that one of the most difficult things to do is to beat a given opponent three times in the same season, but if that’s true, the Trojans certainly made it look easy Thursday, at least at 1 singles and 1 doubs.

Kolbie Mason repeated as No. 1 singles champ with her 6-0, 6-4 defeat of Knox’s Shelby Faverty in their third meeting in under two weeks. For Mason, it felt like validation for the many hours she’s spent on-court over her four years wearing Triton blue.

“It feels really good. It feels like hard work pays off,” said Mason. “I play a lot at the Racquet Club, and to see that pay off, it just feels really good. And to play as a team, I’m glad that they all did well as well.”

After cruising to a 6-0 win in the first set, Mason jumped on Faverty 3-0 in the second set before the Knox No. 1’s patient, defensive style finally began to pay off. But Mason adjusted to put the second set away in 10 games, running her record to 12-0 this season in the process.

“I think the second set she got a little bit more warmed up, and tennis is a huge mental game and sometimes you can just slip in the middle of a match,” explained Mason.

“I just got myself back together and finished it strong. It was difficult, a little bit of a rough patch, but I got it done.”

Hannah Wanemacher goes to her backhand during the 1 doubles championship.

Triton’s 1 doubles tandem of Hannah Wanemacher and Emma Ross had even less trouble in dispatching Knox’s Madison Land and Maddie Krueger, rolling to a 6-0, 6-1 victory there. Like Mason, Wanemacher and Ross repeated as HNAC champs and, also like her, they remain unbeaten this year with a doubles record of 12-0 as of Thursday’s finish. Wanemacher personally moved to 13-0 with a win at 1 singles to her credit after filling in for Mason during a meet with Whitko back on April 20.

The third-year doubles partners weren’t worried about a letdown in their third straight meeting with Land and Kreuger, and they didn’t need to be, either.

“Already playing them twice, I didn’t really think anything of it. The more we just don’t worry about our game and just have fun and smiles out there, we play our best,” said Wanemacher.

“This match we were just kind of goofing around with each other the entire time, making sure the other one was kind of always smiling. I think that got in their heads as well,” echoed Ross. “They changed up their game a little. They tried hitting alleys more, but we spotted that right away, and we fixed it and really shut it down.”

Emma Ross prepares to serve during 1 singles action Thursday.

While Mason, Ross and Wanemacher encountered little resistance, there was a hitch to the Trojans’ third title Thursday, but it wasn’t enough to upend the No. 1 seeds.

After putting away LaVille’s Haylea Girst and Cassie Keilwan in straight sets in their previous two meetings back in April, Triton senior Megan McFarland — back this year from a knee injury that sidelined her throughout 2017 — and freshman partner Emma Hepler dropped their first set, 6-4 before recovering with 6-2 and 6-3 wins for all-conference honors at 2 doubs.

It wasn’t that his players did anything wrong, explained Peckham. The Lancers just played a good match.

“LaVille came out strong, got our girls a little confused,” Peckham said. “We tried to settle them down a little bit. They got a good start in the second set, which calmed them down, and then they started to play a little bit like they did during the season. LaVille still battled. You’ve got to give the credit. They looked a lot better than they did during the regular season so we had to fight for that spot.”

Also for Triton Thursday, Haley Hooley suffered a three-set loss to LaVille’s Taylor Garrett, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 before Peckham subbed in Amanda Baker at the position, where she lost to North Judson’s Lauren Sturgell, 10-9, in the consoles. Molly McFarland also fell to her Judson opponent, Cora Sallee, 10-5, in their third-place match at 2 singles.

The Trojans’ three championships at Thursday’s HNAC tourney were really just the icing on the cake for Triton, which had already clinched the Hoosier North team title with a 6-0 round robin record as of their second straight, 3-2 win over Knox May 2. The conference is structured so that the team title is determined strictly by the duals, and the tournament decides All-HNAC honors at the five positions.

As of their win over Knox last Wednesday, Tritons’ three four-year players — Wanemacher, Ross and Mason — own the distinction not only of having won three straight HNAC crowns but also of having won four straight conference championships after they helped the Trojans take the final Northern State Conference title in the last year of the now-defunct league back in 2015.

Megan McFarland returns a shot during 2 doubles championship play.

Unsurprisingly, the trio has formed a special bond with one another over the years, and finishing off the clean sweep felt, well, pretty special.

“That definitely means a lot to us, especially as seniors because we’ve had so many good players to look up to,” Mason said. “It feels good our senior year to finally get all four in a row and do it as us three together that have all been playing since our freshman year.”

“I think it’s really exciting. This group of seniors, we’ve all kind of had a connection. Our one senior, she was out last year, and that was kind of hard on us to fill her spot. So now she’s back, and it’s really good,” said Ross.

“We feel good leaving the program now.”

Triton tennis now enters the Bremen Sectional beginning next Wednesday. Draws for the tourney take place Monday.