POULSBO — The North Kitsap Vikings will have a tennis tournament to call their own this weekend. North Kitsap will host five Puget Sound tennis teams Saturday in the first-ever Viking Invitational.
North Kitsap Head Coach Trish Olson said she wanted her tennis players to get a taste of tournament experience.
“I wanted to do a high school tournament run by a high school program for high school kids,” Olson said.
The teams besides North Kitsap will be Sequim, Bainbridge Island, Federal Way, Emerald Ridge (from Puyallup) and Nathan Hale. Players will compete in singles No. 1 (the higher-ranked players), singles No. 2, doubles No. 1 and doubles No. 2. Matches will begin at Lions Park on Sixth Avenue and Ridgewood Community Courts on Lincoln before the finals, which will be played at the high school.
Abby Tillotson, who played for North Kitsap when the team still hosted the Olympic League tournament, is looking forward to the weekend.
“It’s an all-day thing. You get to play more than one match, and it’ll be exciting,” Tillotson said.
The tournament will sport several of the Puget Sound’s top tennis players, including Emerald Ridge’s Rachel Owens and Whitney Cheng and Amanda Allender from Bainbridge Island.
North Kitsap used to play in an exchange tournament with a school in Victoria, B.C. but participation in that tournament ended when Coach Keith Johnson retired. Olson decided she wanted the team to get more tournament experience, noting that it’s difficult to find high school tournaments in the Puget Sound.
“United States Tournament Association events are wonderful and competitive, but this (the Viking Invitational) will have 48 players of the same age level, of similar ability, at the same place and time,” Olson said. “That’s a good draw.”
The tournament will have one more advantage for North Kitsap: they will see several teams, including Federal Way and Emerald Ridge, that they are likely to see again in district competition.
Early-round matches will begin at 9 a.m. The final matches are expected to begin at about noon.
