Published: June 24, 2009 12:01 am         

Farmer named female Wabash Valley Spring Athlete of the Year

TERRE HAUTE — Re-inventing her game on the fly, in the midst of an already brilliant high school tennis career, Terre Haute North’s Brittany Farmer finished on a high note earlier this month with a third-place finish at the state singles tournament that matches the best a Terre Haute player has ever done under the current tournament format.

Which is one of the reasons why she’s the Tribune-Star’s Female Athlete of the Year for spring sports.

She was the first winner of one of the female awards that have been presented the past seven seasons, earning her first such distinction in the spring of 2007 when, as a sophomore, she was coming off a second straight Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference singles championship.

She won the McMillan Award as a junior, although that turned out to be the only season during which neither she nor the Patriots advanced in postseason play. Then as a senior she led the Patriots to a top-10 ranking in the state — North lost to eventual state champion Carmel and had two excruciatingly close losses to eventual fourth-place Terre Haute South — and continued in singles play until losing a semifinal match to eventual champion Mary Hill of Munster.

Kristen Clary of South also placed third in the state during the 2002 season.

“I’m really glad I finished my senior year so strong,” Farmer said this week by telephone from a vacation destination. “During the MIC meet [in May] I gained a lot of confidence, and my game went up from there. I was at the top of my game [at the end of the season].”

“She had a fantastic season,” coach Jim Cook of the Patriots agreed. “The year before she was making some changes in her game, and that’s always hard on anybody.

“But the latter half [of this season, during which she didn’t lose after the MIC meet until facing Hill], she gained confidence in what she was doing and it all panned out for her … she beat two girls [in the state tournament] who had been undefeated, and they were all good players [that she faced].”

Her place in North’s tennis history is secure, Cook added.

“She’s had a fantastic career,” the coach said. “I can’t name another player who was all-MIC for four years, and she won [the conference] as a freshman and a sophomore. She was first-team all-state three time and second team once … and went to the Final Four with the team as a freshman and as an individual as a senior. She had a record of 81-12 for her career.”

“I had a good career at North thanks to my coaches and all my teammates, and I thank them for all their support,” Farmer said. “I had a lot of fun.”

Playing for the Patriots, she added, was “quite an honor. I’m really happy I helped North High School have a good name in the tennis community.”

Cook admitted to be sorry he’s no longer Farmer’s coach. “Any coach would be sorry to see her leave,” he said. “She’ll be an outstanding player as she moves on to her college career [at Butler].” That 81-12 record is only part of the reason.

“She’s won numerous sportsmanship awards, including some from the [Central Indiana Tennis Association] that aren’t given out very often,” Cook said. “She’s a real smart kid … 11th in her class … and she was always pleasant.”

No matter the circumstances during the play of the match, Cook indicated, “she was always gracious, win or lose. She’s a real good sportsman, and that’s something that meant a lot to her and her family.”

n Evidence — Farmer returns in the next couple of days from a long-planned vacation trip with her mother, then will play in some tournaments for college-bound players — “I’ve aged out of my old tournaments,” she said — before reporting to Butler later this summer.

Her comments for this article appear because of that graciousness that Cook mentioned. She took time out of her vacation schedule to return a call to a reporter that may have increased her cell phone charges somewhat.

Because she called from Paris.

And it was after midnight in France.