Stella Maris girls tennis is building something special

By Howie Hanson

There is a difference between starting a high school sports program and building one. Stella Maris Academy girls tennis appears to be moving into the second category.

The Sentinels remain young, their varsity history is short and there will be difficult afternoons against deeper, more established programs. But the early weeks of the 2026 season have produced something more important than an inflated record or an easy schedule: evidence that Stella Maris is becoming increasingly capable of competing throughout its lineup.

The best example came in a 5-2 victory over Duluth Denfeld during the Sentinels' opening multi-team event.

Senior Della Seyfer remains the centerpiece of the program at No. 1 singles. She entered the season after posting a 9-9 varsity record last year and has accepted perhaps the least forgiving assignment in high school tennis. Every afternoon, Seyfer is generally asked to play the best singles player the other school can put on a court.

She saw exactly that level of competition against Superior when Lily Clark defeated Seyfer 6-0, 6-1. Clark has since built a 9-0 record this season at No. 1 singles. There is nothing soft about the schedule Stella Maris has placed in front of its senior leader.

But the encouraging development for coach Reier Sjomeling is that this increasingly does not look like a one-player operation.

Against Denfeld, Stella Maris collected five individual victories to win the dual 5-2. Susanna Broadway delivered an important point at No. 4 singles, defeating Zoe Radzak 7-6 (7), 6-3. That was precisely the kind of match a developing program needs to learn how to win — competitive, close and requiring composure when sets reach their most important games.

Evelyn Patrick and Elyce Klos-Maki provided another significant result at No. 1 doubles, defeating Aubry Freberg and Elaria Weiss 7-6 (4), 6-3. Rather than merely competing respectably at the top doubles position, Patrick and Klos-Maki finished the job and contributed one of the points necessary for the Sentinels to win the team match.

Seyfer also pushed Denfeld standout Anissa MacMillan into a deciding super tiebreaker before MacMillan prevailed 10-5. The team result, however, belonged to Stella Maris.

Last season, Sjomeling talked openly about developing lineup depth. Stella Maris had enough ability to win five varsity duals, but young programs frequently reach a stage where the difference between being competitive and consistently winning comes from the fourth singles position and the three doubles teams. The Denfeld victory suggests that process is underway.

There are other names worth learning. Hannah Kime and Lucy Phillips competed together at No. 3 doubles against Superior and made Lily Mahan and Nora Madsen earn a 6-4, 7-5 victory. A straight-set loss will never look particularly impressive in a team scorebook, but a 6-4, 7-5 match against a quality opponent says something different to a coach. It says a doubles team is getting close enough that a few better points at critical moments can change the outcome.

Add Patrick, Klos-Maki and Broadway to Seyfer, Kime and Phillips, and suddenly Stella Maris has more than a featured player. It has pieces of a varsity lineup beginning to take shape. That is the important story of this season.

Stella Maris is not yet a finished tennis program, nor should anyone expect it to be. The school celebrated its first high school graduating class only this spring. Its athletic programs are creating traditions almost from scratch. The girls tennis players competing today are not simply inheriting Stella Maris tennis history. They are writing the first meaningful chapters of it.

Seyfer has been particularly important to that process. She defeated Hermantown's Sophia Piede at No. 1 singles last season, 7-5, 6-1, even though the Hawks won the team match 5-2. She now gets another opportunity against Hermantown when Stella Maris visits the Hawks at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15. That should be one of the Sentinels' more revealing matches of September. Hermantown has significantly more varsity depth and has already opened this season with victories over Duluth Marshall and Princeton. The Hawks also have experienced players throughout their singles and doubles lineup. Stella Maris will have to win points beyond No. 1 singles if it expects to seriously challenge them. That is precisely why the match is useful.

A young program benefits from victories such as the one over Denfeld, but it also needs afternoons when every court is tested. Hermantown should provide exactly that.

Two days later, Stella Maris is scheduled to face Mora on Thursday, Sept. 17, giving Sjomeling's players another opportunity to measure themselves against a Section 7A opponent. Those two matches should tell us considerably more about how quickly this team is progressing.

The temptation with a young athletic program is to judge everything by the final score. That is too simplistic with Stella Maris right now. Watch Broadway in the lower singles lineup. Watch how Patrick and Klos-Maki develop together in doubles. Watch whether Kime and Phillips begin converting those 6-4 and 7-5 sets into victories. Watch whether the Sentinels can begin collecting points from four or five different lineup positions instead of depending upon one or two.

And, certainly, watch Seyfer. She remains the player at the front of the formation, drawing the other team's best opponent and providing the senior leadership Sjomeling needs. But perhaps the most promising development of this young season is that more Sentinels are beginning to stand beside her.

Stella Maris won five varsity matches last season. The next stage is not simply winning six or seven. It is building a lineup. The early evidence suggests the Sentinels are doing exactly that.