Both old and new faces will walk into the women’s tennis locker room this upcoming spring season. However, the team will maintain the same goal it has every year: winning the State Championship.

One of the new faces who will join the team this year is Head Coach Spencer Fields. Fields has been coaching high school tennis since 1997 and will replace previous Head Coach Mike Bostic, who resigned at the end of the 2015 season.

“This is somewhat of a dream come true to take over a program of Carmel’s status, and, particularly, this specific team that has won three straight State Championships in a row,” Fields said. “You don’t get an opportunity very often to just step into these types of roles in players’ lives. So on a scale of one to 10, it’s a 20.”

Mary Elise “Mary” Voigt, tennis player and senior, said she was happy when Fields was announced as the new coach. Voigt said she has worked with Fields as an instructor in the offseason.

“I was happy because I was afraid it was going to be someone that I didn’t know, but since I’ve known Spencer for a while, I was really happy that it was him,” Voigt said.

However, Voigt said she believes the team, collectively, will have to adapt to the new coach and, with him, a new coaching style.

“I think it’s definitely going to be an adjustment because I’ve been with Bostic for three years and, I mean, I’ve known Spencer for six years, so I know how he is, but I think it’s going to be an adjustment for the team as a whole,” Voigt said.

Zoe Woods, varsity tennis player and junior, agreed with Voigt and said she was also happy with the appointment, even though she did not know Fields previously.

“A lot of people knew (Fields) previously, and I didn’t know him, so I was excited to meet him and get to know him,” Woods said. “It’ll be weird without Bostic, but I think (Fields) will be a really good coach.” 

Joining an athletics program that has consistently won matches over the past few years, Fields said he wants to maintain what the team has been doing.

“They know how to win. I mean, they’ve done a lot of it, so (I’m) certainly not reinventing the wheel. Now I think there’s little things that can make them win easier, so looking at some of the finer details in tactics and practice habits, some of those things that I think that can help them win in an even more dominating fashion, I’ll be trying to effect. But not in terms of major things is there really any plan to change anything,” Fields said.

Both Voigt and Woods said they do believe there will be small changes Fields will try to implement, specifically changes that will bring the team together as a whole.

“I think he’s definitely going to work on more of using the team as a whole, because with Bostic we kind of separated with JV and varsity, singles and doubles, but I feel like with Spencer, he’s going to have the team more involved as a whole and include freshman in everything we do to make sure our team is more unified,” Voigt said.

Voigt and Woods both said they believe the team is very capable of attaining the state title again this year, especially because the team only graduated one senior last year and will retain a majority of their players.

“I feel really confident in (the team) especially because we only lost one player last year, and we still have people that played very high JV and are able to play with our varsity team, so I feel really confident that we can achieve the fourth title again,” Voigt said.

Fields said he agreed with what Voigt had to say about the team’s chances this year.

“I think we’re at the driver’s seat,” Fields said. “I mean overall it’s in our hands to win it. We have the tools, the capability, the players and the personnel. It’s something that is not a stretch to think that we should and could do this. So that’s the good news. If we buckle down and put our heads to it, it’s ours to lose or to win.”

Overall, Fields said the most exciting part of the upcoming season is the fact that the team is trying to win the first four-peat for Carmel women’s tennis.

“Well, more than anything, this is a very special group of people,” Fields said. “They are truly chasing history, and, on my end, to be involved with such a unique program and be involved with Carmel High School in a situation like this is certainly amazing. That’s the fun part of the upcoming season, the chasing history part.”