Season Review: Women’s Tennis sustains tradition of success in 2021-22
By Wes Mayberry
ADA — The Ohio Northern women's tennis team has established a tradition of consistent success and added to it during the 2021-22 season.
The Polar Bears got out to an 8-0 start and finished 19-7 overall for their 12th straight winning season. They went 6-1 in the Ohio Athletic Conference to earn the No. 2 seed for the OAC Tournament where they advanced to the finals for the fourth time in the past five tournaments en route to finishing as the runner-up to Otterbein.
"Our women's team had an outstanding season, concluding in the Finals of the OAC Tournament," head coach Mike Bonnell said. "I took over the team halfway through the season, and the student-athletes were amazingly open-minded and willing to put in work. We did so many individual and small group hitting sessions during the early spring, and it was awesome to see it pay dividends down the stretch."
Bonnell, the head coach of the ONU men's tennis team, was named interim head women's tennis coach on Feb. 21 following the departure of former head coach Scott Wills.
The Polar Bears had several standouts this season led by sixth-year senior Katie Curry (Oxford/Talawanda). An All-OAC First Team selection, Curry was 10-2 in singles play and 10-1 in doubles this season for an overall mark of 20-3 and was named OAC Player of the Week on April 18.
In her six seasons at ONU, Curry, who was an All-OAC Honorable Mention honoree as a junior and fifth-year senior, is 168-56 overall, including 91-22 in singles and 77-34 in doubles. She holds the school record for career singles wins, ranks third all-time in overall victories and is tied for sixth all-time in doubles wins.
Sophomore Olivia Kesner (Lima/Central Catholic) earned First Team All-OAC recognition for the second straight season. In her two years at ONU, she has 31 victories, including 14 in singles and 17 in doubles.
Junior Regan Landis (Elkhart, Ind./Concord) was an All-OAC Second Team pick for the second consecutive season and led ONU with 39 overall victories in 2021-22. She tied for the team lead with 18 doubles wins and ranked second with 21 singles victories. She was named OAC Player of the Week on May 2 and finished the year with a 39-12 overall record. In three seasons at ONU, Landis is 77-24 overall, including 38-14 in singles and 39-10 in doubles.
Freshman Miranda Wills (Ada) joined Landis as an All-OAC Second Team selection this season. She was named the OAC Player of the Week on Feb. 21 and ranked second on the team in overall wins and third in both singles and doubles victories. She was 20-7 in singles and 15-13 in doubles for an overall mark of 35-20.
Junior Jeorgia Templin (Fishers, Ind./Hamilton Southeastern) and freshman Katie O'Connell (Novi, Mich./Saint Catherine) rounded out ONU's All-OAC selections this season as Honorable Mention picks.
Templin tied Landis for the team lead in doubles wins and is now a two-time All-OAC Honorable Mention honoree. She was 18-7 in doubles and 7-1 in singles for an overall record of 25-8. In her three-year career at ONU, Templin is 19-5 in singles and 40-10 in doubles for an overall mark of 59-15.
O'Connell finished the season with a record of 32-4, including 23-4 in singles and a perfect 9-0 mark in doubles. She led the team in singles victories and ranked third in overall wins.
That group of All-OAC selections led the Polar Bears to a perfect 6-0 record during the fall portion of their schedule. Those victories came by a combined margin of 48-6.
ONU's winning ways continued when the season picked back up in February, as the team improved to 8-0 with wins over St. Francis (Ind.) and Greenville (Ill.).
The Polar Bears later closed their regular-season schedule by winning eight of their final 10 matches to take some solid momentum into the OAC Tournament.
As the No. 2 seed in the tournament, ONU earned a first-round bye and proceeded to get a 5-4 win over John Carroll to advance to the championship match, which resulted in a 5-1 loss to top-seeded Otterbein.
Curry's 91st singles victory was a 6-4, 6-1 win at No. 3 singles in the semifinals against John Carroll, breaking the record of 90 set the year before by Mackenzie Wills.
The Polar Bears also succeeded in the classroom in 2021-22. Kesner and Landis garnered Academic All-OAC honors and were joined by O'Connell and Wills in earning Scholar All-American status from the International Tennis Association.
Looking ahead, the Polar Bears are set up for a promising 2022-23 season after losing just one player from this year's roster to graduation.
"This is a fun group to work with, and I think things are only going to get better from here," Bonnell said. "The team has now had an offseason to work on some of the different tactics and strategies that we were implementing during the spring, and we are bringing in three talented newcomers that will push for playing time near the top of the lineup. This team is poised to make a deep run in postseason play."