JDHS senior Elliot Welch joins Crimson Bears tennis history
- Klas Stolpe
- Oct 14
- 10 min read
First-ever boys’ single state title adds to seven mixed and girls’ championships Juneau athletes have won since program’s start in 2003
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
The Juneau Independent online newspaper caught up with Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé senior Elliot Welch, who won the first-ever Crimson Bears boys’ singles state tennis championship on Saturday at Anchorage’s Alaska Club East, capping off a tennis career that included 12 Region V titles across boys’ singles, doubles and mixed doubles.
Click on the audio interview with Welch below.
The Juneau Independent is collaborating with JDHS junior Aurora Madsen, editor of the Crimson Tide school paper, on two state tennis features. The first is her overview of the ASAA State Championships in Anchorage on Saturday. An upcoming feature will focus on her experience as a participant at the tournament.
JDHS tennis history
JDHS tennis got its start in 2003 through the efforts of local parents and then co-owner of the Juneau Racquet Club, John McConnochie. His parents played tennis in a small gold mining community in St. Bathans, New Zealand, and McConnochie and his brother had an early introduction to the sport in Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island.
“Swimming sort of took over as my major sport, although I did play cricket and soccer…and in college I started playing racquetball,” McConnochie said. “When I first arrived in Juneau, I was the racquetball pro and fitness director. Racquetball kind of took over from tennis. I played a little but not a great deal. I just knew that it was a vital program for kids in high school…just one of those great, lifetime sports that you can stop for 10 years and then pick back up…I think it is just a wonderful skill set for kids to have as they grow older.”
The JRC had merged with The Alaska Club in 2001, but McConnochie stayed on under a three-year contract. The team consisted of eight to 10 players who had been playing for several years. Club pro Hassan Banisaaid coached the first season, but moved on the next year.
“When Hassan left we struggled to find a USTA (United States Tennis Association)-certified instructor,” McConnochie said. “It is difficult in Alaska to find those people. When he left there was a gap and the tennis program was sort of an embryonic program at the time so we started calling some of the tennis people that were very passionate about it. We spoke to Amy Skilbred and it just took off from there. She did a marvelous job coaching the kids, and mentoring them also, and giving them her passion for tennis, and instilling that into the kids and the program.”
Skilbred, who had given tennis lessons and clinics at the JRC since moving to Juneau in 1984, was asked to replace Banisaaid for two weeks while a new coach was found. She stayed on until retiring in 2015.
“They had high schoolers that were ready and wanted to be part of a team,” Skilbred said. “Things were set up…that two weeks turned into a lot longer. There were young high schoolers that had the support of their parents to learn how to play tennis in Juneau and played pretty well.”
The early JDHS coaching days were unusual for Skilbred, who had grown up playing competitive tennis in New Jersey; played competitively in Europe and USTA tournaments — then the Eastern Lawn Tennis Association; played at Massachusetts’ Amherst College and taught tennis under the guidance of former Australian professional player John Newcombe.
“We had to pay our own way, like when we went up to play in Fairbanks,” Skilbred said. “There was some fundraising…After a couple years we worked with parents to develop a nonprofit for the tennis team, a booster club basically, to raise money and defray the costs.”
Skilbred also credits then-JDHS cross-country running coaches Merry Ellefson and Guy Thibodeau — fellow fall sports coaches — for their perspective on developing the resilience of the person. Under her, the team implemented a no-cut policy and grew to a roster of 65 players when she retired.
“We were really figuring out how to give everybody time and attention,” she said. “That is important when you have 65 kids. Getting to know them all, what was working in their lives and what wasn’t…how we could help as a team to make it work for every one…We had kids who were picking up racquets for the first time and kids who had been playing tennis for years.”
The 2004 season saw the team (20 strong) playing its first matches against other schools, participating in the Fairbanks Alyeska High School Invitational and the Anchorage High School Invitational. In 2005, the team continued to expand and again played in the FAHSI and AHSI, finishing first in boys’ doubles and second in girls’ doubles. The team added a JDHS Tennis Championship for the Juneau players and recognized the girls’ and boys’ singles winners and runners-up. In 2006, the team had grown to 35 players, won the FAHSI, played a JV match against Dimond and played in the AHSI, coming in second in girls’ singles and mixed doubles.
“Before the state tournament began we were sleeping on gym floors, but they were high schoolers and were generally pretty excited to go someplace else and play different people,” Skilbred said.
In 2007, the team expanded to 45 players and played head-to-head against West and South in Anchorage, as well as playing in the Fairbanks Jamboree. This would also be the inaugural ASAA state tournament and JDHS crowned Alaska’s first-ever girls’ singles state champion, Hong Kong exchange student Ling Chan. At the time, Chan was the 15th-ranked open and juniors ladies’ singles player in Hong Kong. She had won the 2004 Hong Kong National Junior Tennis Championship and the 2005 South Chinese Athletic Association Chairman’s Cup Title. Chan, pursuing a business and marketing major, would go on to play college tennis for the Montana State Billings Yellowjackets as a freshman and then for the Harding University Bisons.
“By that point we started to have at least one if not two rotary or American exchange students,” Skilbred said. “Most of them wanted to learn how to play tennis if they didn’t already know how. Joining the tennis team was something they did because tennis is a really big sport internationally…That first state year Ling won it. And at the same time there were other exchange students at several of the other schools…It was great to be this up-and-coming team that didn’t have other people to play in the area that we lived in, and only traveled once or twice a season, to be comfortable and skilled enough to be playing at larger venues.”
Over the years Skilbred and assistants had implemented a mixer tournament fundraiser where adults, who also used the courts, would play with the kids and see the value of those courts to the youth. This allowed skills to improve against stronger competition.
“We developed a whole lot of things and it is really fun to see some are still going,” Skilbred said. “As a coach, one of the really fun things was watching high school students who had come in as freshmen and each year becoming young adults and change over time. It was really important as a coach to see the growth in these young people. And tennis became a part of several people’s lives. I know adults who play tennis because they played on the JDHS tennis team and that’s where they learned how to play.”
Of her coaching time, Skilbred was “proudest of the kids. It was wonderful to see them grow. It was wonderful to see them help each other and support each other and really work as a team in the sense of, it is a very individual sport but supporting each other when things worked and when they didn’t work…I was grateful I had the opportunity.”
Skilbred’s assistant, high school teacher Kurt Dzinich, took over after her retirement and coached until 2019.
“The tennis team has had a long and successful run…of course, one of the biggest challenges was losing several tennis courts, but the team has managed to continue to thrive, which I am very thankful for,” Dzinich said. “It is important for there to be options for younger kids to take up the game before reaching high school. Mona has done a fantastic job teaching younger kids, which then feed into the team at ninth grade. (There were others before Mona that taught at club, but the program was dropped long ago). Since JDHS is the only team in Southeast, having the local tennis players helping to play matches against the students has been a great help in developing them. Of course, having the nightly tennis practices as a team, with matches on weekends against locals, is vital for team development. In the past we always took a Fairbanks trip, then the Anchorage Invitational trip, then back for state tournament. Unfortunately, the Fairbanks trips ended when the club closed down all indoor courts, and we felt we could not risk trips late August and early September for outdoor courts.”
Anne Kincheloe took over after Dzinich and coached until 2022.
“If it wasn’t for The Alaska Club working with us to help facilitate coaching high school and teaching younger players we probably would struggle,” Kincheloe said. “Also, Mona (Mametsuka) should take much credit for her dedication to teaching the younger players for many years and bringing on Austin (Stefanich) in this capacity. They’ve recognized the value of year-round tennis translating into successes at high school state.”
Kincheloe is now an assistant coach with Mona Mametsuka under head coach Austin Stefanich.
“The tennis team is a beginner-friendly high school sport and we welcome players with no prior experience,” Mametsuka said. “We are also finding that players are encouraging their friends to play so it ends up being something they can enjoy together. We may be the only high school sport in Juneau that doesn't have any middle school programming through the schools or club organizations. It is something we are working on to introduce more youth to the sport. Our success comes from players committing to work on their game in the off-season. Our 11-week season is very short and while we see every player improve, the larger growth occurs during the rest of the year. Thankfully, The Alaska Club has two indoor tennis courts and offers programming that allows our athletes to keep playing throughout the year.”
Added Stefanich, “Our current high school tennis athletes are the magic to the increase in popularity and success. This group of kids has such a drive to grow and improve our team. These kids spend as much time as possible on the court, that they have become so smoothly intertwined into our adult tennis community as well.
Our tennis players encourage and keep each other playing in the off-season, and they are constantly convincing their friends to come out and try tennis. They must be having a good time, because they keep coming back.”
Other past JDHS state tennis champions have included Milina Mazon and Alex Rehfeldt in mixed doubles in 2024; Elizabeth Djajalie and Lucas Mattson in mixed doubles in 2023; Katie Pikul in girls’ singles in 2022; Sami Good and Phillip Wall in mixed doubles in 2016; Sami Good and Erica Hurtte in girls’ doubles in 2015; Laurel Messerschmidt and Brian Vandor in mixed doubles in 2009; Merijke Coenraad and Steffan Wilcox in mixed doubles in 2008.
Erica Hurtte, a 2019 graduate, was a three-time runner-up in girls’ singles from 2016-2018, falling to South Anchorage’s Christine Henry each time, and 2014 graduate Emma Good was a three-time runner-up in mixed doubles from 2011-2013 (with Johnny Joyce, Marc Heifetz and Jasper MacNaughton, respectively). Good would jokingly refer to herself as “the best runner-up player in the state.”
The Crimson Bears placed second as a team in the state championships in 2016 and 2023; third in 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2021, 2022 and 2024; fourth in 2018; fifth in 2009, 2015 and 2019; fifth in 2025; seventh in 2010 and 2011; and ninth in 2014. There was no state tournament in 2020 due to COVID.
Other notable placings:
2007 - Nathan Graves/Lindsey Kelly, 2nd mixed doubles; Merijke Coenraad/Dream Suchitbharabitya, 4th girls doubles. Good Sport Team selections N. Graves/L. Kelly.
2008 - Aaron Cohen/Brian Vandor, 2nd boys doubles. GST - N. Graves/M. Coenraad.
2009 - A. Cohen/N. Graves, 2nd boys doubles. GST - Nick Parker/Laurel Messerschmidt.
2010 - Eddie Hurtte/Sage Davenport, 4th mixed doubles. GST - Marlena Sloss/Nathan Fosket.
2011 - E. Good/J. Joyce, 2nd mixed doubles; S. Davenport/M. Sloss, 3rd girls doubles. GST - M. Sloss/J. Joyce.
2012 - E. Good/M. Heifetz, 2nd mixed doubles; Pelle Arthur, 3rd girls singles; Sam Bibb/J. MacNaughton, 3rd boys doubles. GST - Jade Pilcher/S. Bibb.
2013 - E. Good/J. MacNaughton, 2nd mixed doubles; Sami Good/Kathe Tallmadge, 3rd girls doubles.
2014 - J. McNaughton/S. Bibb, 5th boys doubles; Jon Scudder/S. Good, 6th mixed doubles; Philip Wall, 6th boys singles; Bailey Davenport/Catherine Walsh 6th girls doubles.
2015 - Kelson McPherson, 5th boys singles.
2016 - Erica Hurtte, 2nd girls singles; Jacob Dale/Reuben MacNaughton, 4th boys doubles.
2017 - Erica Hurtte, 2nd girls singles; Adelie McMillan/Sammy McKnight, 2nd mixed doubles; J. Dale/Kolby Hoover, 3rd boys doubles. JDHS wins Team Sportsmanship Award.
2018 - Erica Hurtte, 2nd girls singles; A. McMillan/Olivia Moore, 4th girls doubles; Jaymie Collman/Sahil Bathija, 4th mixed doubles.
2019 - O. Moore/J. Collman, 3rd girls doubles; A. McMillan/Liam Penn, 4th mixed doubles; Anna Dale, 5th girls singles; William Smoker/Will Rehfeldt, 5th boys doubles. JDHS wins Team Sportsmanship Award.
2020 - COVID year, no state tournament.
2021 - A. Dale/J. Collman, 2nd girls doubles; Katie Pikul, 3rd girls singles; Callan Smith/L. Penn, 3rd boys doubles.
2022 - A. Dale/Brendan West, 3rd mixed doubles; Gloria Bixby/Chelsea Ligsay, 5th girls doubles; Elliot Welch, 5th boys singles.
2023 - C. Ligsay/Milina Mazon, 2nd girls doubles; E. Welch/B. West, 3rd boys doubles.
2024 - E. Welch, 3rd boys singles; Aurora Madsen/Isabella Reyes-Boyer, 5th girls doubles.
2025 - A. Madsen/Fallon Dale, 4th girls doubles; Paige Kirsch, 5th girls singles. Good Sport Team - E. Welch and I. Reyes-Boyer.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@gmail.com.
