Moses Lake doubles team heads to state

YAKIMA — The Moses Lake High School tennis team will send its first representatives to the state competition since 2014 after Amelie Gregoire and Malika Warnick went undefeated in the district tournament.

“It’s a pretty cool thing for kids from Moses Lake to make it to state,” Moses Lake High School Head Tennis Coach Richard Gregoire said.

Amelie Gregoire and Warnick entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed in doubles, having gone undefeated in the regular season in doubles. Entering the final day of the district tournament, eight Chiefs players were still active in the competition.

“It was really good to take eight kids back to the final day of districts,” coach Gregoire said. “It was a really positive thing for our tennis program.”

On the boy’s side, Marwan Warnick and Adam Wiseman matched up with another duo from Moses Lake, facing off against the doubles team of Ian Wiseman and Josh Acevedo in the consolation semifinals. Warnick and Wiseman won and advanced to the consolation finals.

“Yeah, it’s always tough [to have your teams play each other],” Gregoire said. “But that’s what happens.”

Warnick and Wiseman were two wins away from earning the first boy’s state berth at Moses Lake High since 1999.

For Marwan and Adam it was a tough draw,” Gregoire said. “They had to win some tough matches and they still had a couple to go, but they came up a bit short.”

Moses Lake sent two singles and two doubles teams for both the girl’s and boys’ teams to district competition. Caleb Dickinson and Roman Jenks were eliminated in the boy’s competition on Saturday, along with Cece Trinnaman and Kalei Bruce on the girl’s team.

This season had a stark difference when compared to last year, as the players were able to compete in meaningful postseason competition. Due to Covid, last season’s year-end tournament looked nothing like a typical postseason, according to the Moses Lake coach.

“We had a culminating, kind of year-end little tournament thing, but it didn’t have a state berth on the line,” Gregoire said. “[Not having a state berth] diminished it in my mind. I can’t necessarily speak for my players, but it felt different.”

Gregoire is confident in his younger player’s abilities to improve over their next years. With Warnick and Wiseman having made it to a consolation final and Amelie making a state appearance all as sophomores, Gregoire is confident in their ability to compete in the coming years.

“We have a ton of sophomores and freshmen who can take the next step,” Gregoire said. “We had a really young team this year.”

Gregoire and Warnick will head to Kennewick on May 27 for the state tournament. Matches will be held at The Pacific Clinic and Kamiakin High School.

As the regular season had come to a close and district competition finished, coach Gregoire took a step back and thought about the biggest lesson he’d learned this season.

“[I learned] about how powerful the team aspect of tennis can be,” coach Gregoire said, “and trying to get all that across to the players that working as a team can be a super [important] aspect of playing tennis.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@ColumbiaBasinHerald.com.