by Eva Dean Folkert

Head coach Bob Cawood looked at his jubilant Hope College women's tennis team as it got ready to have a team photo taken as the 2021 MIAA Tournament champions, and a momentary feeling of uncertainty overwhelmed him. Not because he didn't want to celebrate; he was just unsure how to.

"I thought to myself, OK, I think this is my first photo close to another human being in a really long time," Cawood said. "It was one of those things where I'm like, OK, I'm extremely uncomfortable. I'm going to ask Annie (Carrigan, Hope's athletic trainer), is this OK? And I was like, 'Annie, is this OK? I don't even know. Is this fine?'

"She's just said, 'Yeah, it's fine. Enjoy it. Embrace it.' And I thought, 'Yeah, you know what? I'm going to enjoy this. Let's take this photo!'"

And with smiles wide behind masks, the Flying Dutch had their tournament champions team photo snapped, the ninth consecutive time they have done so after top-seeded Hope downed second-seeded Kalamazoo College, 5-3, in the MIAA Tournament finals at Heeringa-VandePoel Tennis Stadium on Friday.

Since 2013, Hope has won every MIAA Women's Tennis Tournament, except in 2020 when it was canceled due to the pandemic. 

"Excellence is not given to you. You have to earn it," Cawood said.  "Every single year you have to show up and play. And on a day like today, K pushed us to that limit. This is exactly why we play this sport. Thankfully we were able to come out and have a couple of our more veteran players come up with the wins at the right time, in the right spots, and we came out on the winning end, which is awesome."

Hope opened the match with victories in two out of the three doubles matches.

Winning with identical 8-3 victories over Kalamazoo was the No. 1 doubles team of junior Sydney Jackson of Fort Wayne, Indiana (Carroll HS) and senior Leah Newhof of Caledonia, Michigan (Grand Rapids Christian), and the No. 3 doubles team of junior Saydee Johns of Holland, Michigan (Holland) and sophomore Taylor Truman of Hudsonville, Michigan (Hudsonville).

"Our whole theme throughout the year is (sweeping) doubles, and instead of going up 3-0, we went up 2-1, and you could just tell the difference in terms of the energy level from them as well as from us," Cawood said. "So for us to be able to close the match out after a tighter doubles result was great."

Senior Bailey Chorney posted Hope's first singles win at the No. 3 flight when she downed Helen Pelak, 6-3, 6-0. 

Newhof notched the Flying Dutch's next point at No. 2 singles when she topped Maddy Winarski, 6-2, 6-4. 

Then Kalamazoo took singles wins at flights No. 4 and No. 5 as Johns lost to Sophie Zhuang, 3-6, 4-6, and Annika Weeber lost to Renee Torres, 4-6, 3-6.

And just like that Hope held a narrow lead, 4-3.

With No. 1 singles players Sydney Jackson and No. 6 singles player Delanie Riebschleger still on the court playing in their third sets, the Flying Dutch needed just one more point for the victory. They got it when Jackson roared back after losing the first set to Caroline Norton 6-7, to take the next two sets, 6-1, 6-1, to win her match and give Hope the tournament title. 

The Flying Dutch (12-3 overall) now wait to know their next competition in the NCAA Division III Championship as the MIAA's automatic qualifier. Hope will learn who it plays next on Monday, May 10 when the NCAA releases the bracket at 12 p.m. 

"We're just going to show up, do the best that we can and hopefully, hopefully we're playing our best tennis at the right time and let the chips fall where they may," Cawood observed.

And next time, he'll know how to handle the team photo, too.