MONROE — The Cheesemakers return eight letterwinners to this year’s tennis team, including No. 1 singles player Kylie Miller.

“We bring back a very experienced team this year which will be great,” said coach Matt Bordner.

Back this year includes seniors Alicia Brunton (No. 4 singles), Melana and Bella Brunton (No. 2 doubles), Bre Giasson and Morgan Johnson (No. 3 doubles), as well as juniors Allison Wunschel (No. 3 singles) and Sydnee Conway (No. 1 doubles). 

Also back is sophomore Lydia Setterstrom, who missed time in the spring Alternate Fall season with an injury.

“Lydia Setterstrom looks to likely step into our varsity lineup as a sophomore this year. She had a tough ankle injury last season and is battling a wrist injury now but definitely has the ability to compete well in our lineup,” Bordner said. Sophomores Vaughn Barker and Lindsay Leuzinger finished the junior varsity season strong in the spring and could compete for varsity spots as well.

Newcomers to the team include Taylor Jacobson, Kate Kundert and Sophie McGuire.

“(They) all are newcomers that will be exciting to develop. They bring in athleticism and should add a lot of competition to our practices,” Bordner said. “I think we have great depth this year as a team and a ton of experience. This should allow us to work on much more advanced skills and strategies which will be great. Last year, we were so inexperienced and really just had to work on the basics even at the varsity level. Bringing back so many players will be great and even returning an experienced JV will be great for developing our younger players.”

With 8 of the 10 roster spots returning, Bordner sees the competition level in practice improving, as well as simple confidence on the court.

“Our doubles lineup will be up for competition, and it’ll be fun to see how it all plays out. We have some doubles pairs returning, and while it’s nice to have that chemistry I think there’s also a possibility that we move things around depending on how much players have progressed from last season,” Bordner said. “I think we have a lot of depth to fill some of our open spots in the varsity lineup.”

Miller will be the leader and team captain, Bordner said. 

“She played a solid year last year at No. 1 singles after playing No. 2 doubles her sophomore year,” Bordner said. “I think just finding the right lineup will be important for our season. We have a deep team, but most of our players play at a similar level and so finding the right spots in the lineup will be challenging. I think especially figuring out our No. 1 doubles team will be important. That spot will likely dictate how the rest of our lineup shapes out with this group. We should have a very competitive bottom half of our lineup.”

This fall begins the new Badger Conference realignment. Gone are the days of North and the South divisions. This year, the entire conference has been reset geographically into four quadrants, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest. Teams will only compete in league competitions against their own quadrant and the two surrounding. Monroe will be in the Southwest with Mount Horeb, Oregon and Madison Edgewood. The Northeast quadrant of Beaver Dam, Watertown, DeForest and Waunakee will not play Monroe in the regular season.

“As a team, we’d really like to grab some conference wins this year as our main team goal. The conference re-alignment should be beneficial for us and so hopefully we can start to work our way into the middle of the conference,” Bordner said. “I think Edgewood is always the team to beat for tennis, and it’ll be really interesting getting to see Baraboo, Portage, and Reedsburg regularly now with the conference shift.”