2024 Northwest Herald Girls Tennis Player of the Year: Marian Central’s Kaitlyn Remke

Marian Central’s Kaitlyn Remke had a different mentality heading into her senior season of tennis.

After committing to play at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, Remke wanted to enjoy her senior year. She also wanted the Hurricanes to take another step as a program.

“I think my mentality was kind of just going and enjoying every practice and every match, having fun with my teammates because it’s the last time I’m going to be playing with them,” Remke said. Yeah, I did have really high expectations for everyone on my team to just work hard when you’re at practice and it really paid off in the end.”

It sure did. After not being competitive during her freshman season, the Hurricanes reached a historic high when they placed fifth as a team at the Class 1A state tournament.

Remke played a major role in the program’s renaissance. She qualified for the state meet for the third time, where she went 3-2. Remke also won Chicagoland Christian Conference and sectional championships to finish the season 21-9.

For her success on the court and leadership off it, Remke was named the 2024 Northwest Herald Girls Tennis Player of the Year, as selected by the sports staff with input from area coaches. Huntley junior Ella Doughty also was considered for the honor.

Remke answered some questions from Northwest Herald sports reporter Michal Dwojak about her favorite memory from her senior year, where in the world would she go and how excited she is to play tennis collegiately.

How did you feel your senior season went?

Remke: I thought it went really well. Starting from my freshman season, our tennis team wasn’t as strong. Coming on as a freshman and being on varsity, being able to build that up to taking fifth place as a team was really super cool. Individually, I did pretty well also, but I was always more worried about the team and how we were doing and ending fifth place was really super cool.

Did you change anything compared to your previous three seasons?

Remke: I kind of built off of the growth, and I think my mentality was more relaxed. I wasn’t always fixated on the result like I used to. I feel like I used to be more fixated on the result, but this year, I was definitely more worried about improving my team as a whole and definitely just my mentality was enjoy competing, enjoy the competition, enjoy the pressure. Definitely don’t like try to avoid it. I think that was more of a mature stance that I took into my senior year versus my other years. It was definitely just enjoy the competition, especially good competition when it comes around.

What did it mean for you to go to state this year?

Remke: It meant a lot, but it meant more for me to watch my teammates come to state with me, as well. It’s been really cool that I’ve never had to go to state by myself. I got to go again with my sister this year, Jenna, and so that was super cool. And then our two doubles also got to go to state. So I think it meant more that my teammates were going with me than it did for me personally going to state. So that was definitely a little bit different than years previous. Being able to play my teammates, having us all play each other in the [sectional] finals was also pretty cool.

Was that your favorite moment from the season, or did something else kind of stick out to you?

Remke: I think my favorite moment from the season was probably sectionals, knowing that we all got to go to state and just looking back at the season and being super proud of everything that we had accomplished and that we had grown the tennis program to be one of the best. That was really super cool to look back at. Marian’s never won sectionals twice in a row, so being able to do that and just enjoy sectionals one last time, and being able to win two sectionals one last time was really super cool. So I think that was the highlight, just being with my teammates and being able to all go to state

What did it mean to be part of the program’s growth?

Remke: It’s really cool because coming out of my freshman year, we weren’t very strong. We lost a lot of matches. It wasn’t nearly as competitive as it was now. Bringing my sister on the team and helping her improve and be better. I think I was really able to help push everybody to be better. And we got two great freshmen and they really helped us out. I was able to let them know that Marian is a great option to go to and they really saw potential in our tennis team. They really helped us go back-to-back for conference and sectionals. That’s probably the highlight of my tennis journey, just watching the tennis team go from getting crushed every year to being one of the best in the area.

How did you get started playing tennis?

Remke: I started tennis probably seven or eight years ago. I didn’t take it too seriously until about four years ago, where now I regularly train up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I didn’t seriously consider playing super competitively until three or four years ago. Then tournaments were a really big thing two or three years ago when I decided I wanted to play in college. So that’s when tennis really started picking up for me. When I realized that, hey, like maybe it’s something I can do in the future. Now seeing that I’m playing in college is like a super cool thing to look back at.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

Remke: I’d probably want to visit Italy. I would really love to see a different part of the world. So that’d be super cool. I think [I’d want to see] the whole thing. I think I’d want to go to Italy and just see a different culture than America.

If you could have any superpower, which superpower would you want and why?

Remke: Definitely to fly, just get anywhere super quickly. That would make my life a lot easier than having to drive and sit in traffic.

What’s your favorite class that you’re taking right now?

Remke: Theology is probably my favorite. We get to talk about things that are actually prevalent to us today instead of just like reading from textbooks. We get to have very open conversations about what we want our futures to look like and what God has to do with those futures.

What would you say is one thing that people don’t know about tennis?

Remke: They don’t know how difficult it is, and they also don’t know how long it is. If a match is super short, it’s still 45 minutes. Usually it goes from like an hour and a half to like, I think my longest this season was pushing three hours. So I just don’t think people realize how long and time consuming it is and how much focus you have to have for a long period of time.

If you could change any rule, what rule would you change?

Remke: I would do if [the ball] hits the net, it’s automatically a redo. I feel like I’ve gotten screwed over so many times because it just rolls over the net. So definitely if I hit the net, you just redo the whole point.

How excited are you to continue to play tennis collegiately?

Remke: I’m super excited. I’ve gotten a really cool opportunity to play on a really good team at a decent-sized Division III school and that’s been super cool. It was the perfect option for me. It wasn’t too far from home, it’s not too expensive, and the team is really good. I love my future coach. He’s been super great. I’ve always known I’ve wanted to play there, and just being able to know that I’m playing there and that’s where I’m going to be for the next four years, I don’t think I really want to be anywhere else. So I love the teammates there. I love the environment, so I’m super excited.