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The Raiders got the good news and celebrated loudly right after Friday’s homecoming parade ended. “I got off the (tennis team) float and we were tearing it down and Bucki came over to me and he was like, ‘you guys are going to state,’” Wildberg said. “I was like, ‘OK, is this a joke or something?’” “It was after the parade and I’m in marching band,” Brost said. “So, we came back on the bus and the girls had been waiting for each bus to go by. The whole team was there, so I came off and they were like all standing there. It was super nice of them. Then Lindsey told me we made it to state. It was a big surprise.”

Brost and Wildberg started the year as Medford’s top two singles players. Brost had a solid junior season at number-two singles, earning honorable mention All-Great Northern Conference honors and Wildberg was a number-three sectional qualifier and took third.

But, as Bucki typically does, after two weeks of surveying the sectional landscape, he was convinced their best shots of advancing in the post-season would be as a doubles team.

Bucki said the players didn’t exactly warm up to the idea immediately.

“It’s a huge adjustment,” Wildberg said. “I give doubles teams a lot of credit. It is a lot of work relying on someone else besides yourself.”

“It’s just a different mindset,” Brost said. “It’s just different. Different placement, different strategies. But l like it now. When we first started, I definitely wasn’t sure of it. Our first match was really bad.”

That first match together came in flight one in a 6-0, 6-1 loss on Aug. 26 to Rhinelander’s Taylor Riopel and Paige Oleinik, the eventual GNC runners-up. But the following day, in day one of the Altoona Invitational, they won a pair of number-two matches against teams from Eau Claire North and Osceola. In day two, they were 6-2, 6-2 winners in flight one over the team from Black River Falls and gave Altoona’s Josie Rondestvedt and Bella Bauer a battle in the Rails’ 7-5, 7-6 (1) win. Altoona’s team is seeded eighth in the state tournament. Bucki said that’s when he knew the combination was going to work. Later in the year, Wildberg and Brost also played competitive matches with sectional runners-up Evie Shepich and Teigan Petersilka of Eau Claire Regis (6-3, 7-5) and sectional champions Ella Schroeder and Marissa Stolt of Stevens Point Pacelli (6-4, 6-1 and 6-1, 6-4). Regis is seeded sixth at state and Pacelli is seeded fifth. Wildberg and Brost wound up third in a stacked GNC flight-one tournament behind Pacelli and Rhinelander.

“They’re all ranked and they played right with all of those teams,” Bucki said. “That’s the exciting part.”

“I feel like Lindsey’s good up at the net and in back,” Brost said. “I would say I’m maybe better up at the net.”

“Sophie’s serve is really good and that always helps because sometimes they can’t get it back” Wildberg said.

“I think their strongest point is their returns,” Bucki said. “Just always having to return every point in singles I think helped out a lot with that. They’re used to returning a lot and they have different options as returns. I think that helps a lot.”

The players aren’t quite sure what happened in their sectional match, but getting the opportunity to go out on a higher note means everything to them.

“I’m just grateful because after we played our last match, I just wanted to play one more because it wasn’t a very good match. I’m going to be honest,” Brost said. “So I just want to play another one.”

“My goal is to just go out and have fun. Do what we can do,” Wildberg said.

“(The Albrightsons) were a good team,” Brost said. “I guess maybe we’re not being fair to ourselves.”

“They did play extremely well,” Bucki said of Baldwin-Woodville’s state team.” “They got everything back.”

But the Raiders feel that match was just a blip on what had been a good final stretch of the year where they won eight of 11 matches.

“I think we had a slump maybe, but then in our last few we were playing probably the best we had been the whole year,” Brost said.

“We’re playing Catholic Memorial’s twos,” Bucki said. “They’re going to be good, but it’s players we know we can play with. We played with three of the eight seeded teams there. Those are three of the top eight teams and they’ve competed with all of them. Having that confidence, knowing they can play at that level is really helpful.”

Brost and Wildberg said they are grateful for the support of their teammates, many of whom are planning to make the trip to Madison, as well as their parents and Medford’s coaches.

“Our parents have been to just about every single match, even if it’s away and starts at 4:30 p.m.,” Wildberg said. “They’ve been to every one.”

“Our teammates have been insanely supportive,” Brost said. “It’s a really fun group of girls. Our coaches made us who we are as tennis players. Our first year I think we both were honestly terrible. So it’s kinda cool to see how far we’ve come.”

Also at the sectional

All three of Medford’s doubles teams competed at the Oct. 6 sectional.

In flight two, senior Kelsey Jascor and sophomore Masaeda Krug drew a tough semifinal matchup with Rice Lake’s Emily Mofle and Natalie Nolin and played well but came up on the short end of a 6-2, 6-4 decision.

Their performance in that match, however, may have helped Brost and Wildberg get to state.

“Maybe the Regis twos had a chance (to be special qualifiers) but our numbertwos helped out a lot with that because they played Regis to a tiebreak in a set when they played here (on Aug. 31),” Bucki said. “Just knowing our twos were as close as they were to their twos, it helped out a lot. And Masaeda and Kelsey played Rice Lake in the first round really close. Then Regis played them and got crushed 6-1, 6-2 in the championship. Having our twos play as well as they did helped out a lot indirectly.

“Masaeda and Kelsey played a very good first match against Rice Lake,” he added. “That match was going to be a very, very difficult one. I knew if they played well they’d have a shot and honestly, they did. The first set was 2-6, but every game was close. It could’ve been 6-2 us. The second set was even closer. That team just walked through Regis in the championship, so they played really well.”

Pacelli’s Amelia Jacoby and Julia Storch, the GNC champions in flight two, beat the Raiders 6-2, 6-3 in the third-place match. Jascor and Krug were 11-8 together this season after starting the year 4-3 in flight one.

In flight three, Baldwin-Woodville’s Maggie Jensen and Kylie Kastel, who had played in flight two most of the year, beat Raider juniors Myah Smith and Eryka Seidl 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals, but Smith and Seidl rebounded to take third with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over Amery’s Marissa Fisk and Annabelle Fisk. Seidl and Smith were 16-7 overall this fall.

“(Baldwin-Woodville) was a team that could place the ball a little bit more and they struggled with that,” Bucki said. “In the third-place match, they dominated the first set, in the second set they got beat pretty handily and in the third set, they came back and won. So that was good to end with the win.”

Medford finished sectional play with 15 team points, good for seventh place behind Regis (37), Amery (28), Pacelli (27), Newman Catholic (25), Antigo (23) and Rice Lake (19). Ellsworth (14), Baldwin-Woodville (12) and Columbus Catholic (11) rounded out the top 10.

Masaeda Krug

Eryka Seidl

Myah Smith