Fear of the unknown turns into friendship

Staff

Published Friday, September 28, 2007

By Jeff Budlong, sports editor

Kelli Hanson was afraid.

Coming into this tennis season she didn’t really know Hali Hendrickson. Sure, the two played a couple of seasons on the Albert Lea tennis team, but Hendrickson was primarily a doubles player while Hanson rarely strayed from singles play.

“I was pretty scared of Hali before this year actually,” Hanson said. “She was always one of the girls who was older and I never really talked to her before this year.”

Rewind to this past summer and Hendrickson found herself entering her senior year without a consistent hitting partner to practice with after her older sister, Niki, graduated in the spring. So Hendrickson picked up the phone and called one of the few familiar faces on a young Tiger team. Hendrickson and Hanson, a junior, hit it off and the rest is successful tennis history.

“I just try to have fun and Hali has been key in that,” Hanson said. “I have always been the young one on the team, and this year I would see the doubles all be younger than me. I am used to being scared to talk or cheer for the older girls, but now I feel much more comfortable.”

Summer practices every Tuesday and Thursday and often five days a week began the bond for the two which only grew when familiar faces were uncommon when the first day of fall practice arrived.

Hendrickson played primarily doubles until this year but her 14-5 record shows she can more than handle herself on the singles court. Her raw athleticism allows her to overpower most opponents even if her tennis talent isn’t tops on the team.

“Hali has a very specific plan she has to execute or she is going to get in trouble,” Albert Lea head coach Sean Gillam said. “And still even against players with better strokes she is able to execute that plan.”

Watching Hendrickson it quickly becomes apparent she would excel at nearly any sport she played from basketball — where she is easily one of the best forwards in the Big Nine Conference — to bowling.

Hanson may not be quite the athlete Hendrickson is but the junior simply finds a way to be successful no matter what sport she is playing. On top of her 15-4 mark on the tennis court, Hanson goaltends for the varsity hockey team and has been a fixture atop the girls’ golf team.

“Kelli is able to hit any shot that is necessary and being able to hit any shot is something that I really think is an important thing more than hitting the perfect shot,” Gillam said.

Their games may differ, but their competitive drives do not.

“Every time we go out there we want to win,” Hendrickson said. “I don’t take a loss well.”

“When you get two competitors out there like them one of two things is going to happen,” Gillam said. “Either they are going to be competitive against each other and they are going to be adversaries in some way, or they are going to realize they can be competitors in practice and push each other to a higher level.”

Both players look at tennis as a sport they can enjoy without some of the stress and pressure they face in other sports like hockey and basketball. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t get pumped for matches as both players pointed to the team’s win over Rochester Century, when they played doubles together, as their memorable moment of the season so far.

“(Century) thinks they are so good, they have so many (players) to choose from and they just expect to win,” Hanson said. “When they don’t it throws them for a loop.”

Heading into Saturday’s Big Nine Conference Meet both Hendrickson and Hanson want to be seeded.

“If we don’t get the seeds I don’t know that it matters as long as we don’t have to take on the big boys early,” Gillam said. “I would hate to have us unseeded if I were a seeded player.”

Regardless of whether any of Albert Lea’s players end up seeded or not Hendrickson sees good things for her team. While the young doubles teams have had to learn on the job against tough varsity experience the singles lineup of Dezeray Jacobs, Hendrickson, Hanson and Taylor Nelson have provided the foundation.

“I am really looking forward to Big Nine because we have some girls who could really do well and go somewhere,” Hendrickson said.

The Tigers can just follow the lead of Hanson and Hendrickson who proved there is nothing to be scared of, especially not a friend.

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