Mt. Pleasant girls tennis looking to earn respect in WPIAL team playoffs

By: Paul Schofield
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 | 8:30 PM

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Aaron Hutter coached various sports — girls tennis, softball and football — at Mt. Pleasant.

He knows if you want respect, you must earn it.

The fifth-year coach, however, was a little disappointed his girls tennis squad was seeded eighth in the WPIAL Class 2A team tennis playoffs, and it will host No. 9 Neshannock at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

The match originally was scheduled for Tuesday, but it was postponed because of rain.

“The team has won consecutive section titles and is 14-0,” Hutter said. “I thought we would have be seeded higher. We have to win a match.”

The Vikings lost to Indiana in the opening round of last season’s playoffs.

“This is a special team,” Hutter said. “They are hard workers, they push each other, they pull for each other and they are friends.

“These girls want to win. They wanted to win every match 5-0, and we only went three sets three times. Not only did we win, but we also won handily.”

Hutter said he expected this team to reach the postseason despite only having one senior, No. 1 singles player Bella Fullman, who committed to play at Seton Hill.

Mt. Pleasant has 27 players on the roster (eight juniors, 11 sophomores and seven freshmen).

“We had a lot of girls coming back that had some experience,” Hutter said. “So I made sure that we rotated a lot people last year to gain some depth and experience.

“Our biggest strength is our depth we have with all the juniors and sophomores that stepped in. We also played a lot of junior varsity matches.”

Mt. Pleasant played Hempfield, Latrobe and Norwin.

“We wanted to get more girls experience for down the road,” Hutter said. “All the girls have stepped up their game.”

Hutter said he has four girls bettering themselves at racquet clubs.

“If you want to be good, you have to put in the extra work,” Hutter said. “That goes for any sport.”

The other singles players are juniors Ryleigh Drzal and Autumn Jurkovic-Kuzma.

The doubles teams are sophomore Megan Bullock and junior Danica Trainer, and juniors Hannah Shawley and Chloe Zelmore.

Fullman said the closeness of players is what clicks for the team.

“We all just get along really well,” Fullman said. “We are committed, focused and like what we are doing. The numbers on the team have steadily gone up since my freshman season.”

Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.

Tags: Mt. Pleasant