All-RTC4 girls tennis: Callahan wins player of year for 3rd time

Val T.
Jul 18, 2025
2 min read

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

**RTC Girls Tennis Player of the Year Karegan Callahan**

For the third consecutive year, Tippecanoe Valley’s Karegan Callahan is the RTC4 Girls Tennis Player of the Year.

This year featured two top players in Callahan and Ella McCarter of Rochester, but we are giving the honor to Callahan since she won her head to head meeting with McCarter. And as impressive as McCarter was in finishing undefeated against Three Rivers Conference competition, we also thought Callahan performed well against an equally difficult list of opponents.

The Valley team took another step forward this year and proved to be the class of the Indiana Northern State Conference in its inaugural year, and they were able to do it while integrating two freshmen into their singles lineup. The big challenge moving forward is they remain in a very challenging sectional with schools like Warsaw, Wawasee and Columbia City.

As for Rochester, they will say farewell to four strong seniors while also looking for a new coach to replace the resigning Adrian Paulik.

We thank Paulik and Valley coach Hunter Ackerman for sending us their results and sharing their thoughts with us about the progress of their teams, but this list is ours and ours alone, and we take full responsibility.

Ella McCarter Savana Miller

All-RTC4

Singles

Karegan Callahan (Tippecanoe Valley) – Callahan does not over power opponents, but she has a serve that she can consistently place, and she is a great defensive player.
Ella McCarter (Rochester) – McCarter had great coverage and refined her groundstrokes as a senior. Beating strong opponents from Manchester and Northfield was especially noteworthy.
Savana Miller (Tippecanoe Valley) – The younger sister of 2022 Player of the Year Lydia Miller, Savana played No. 2 singles as a freshman and more than held their own. This is the first big product of the feeder system that Ackerman is building at Valley.

Sarah Finney Ella Sandbakken

Doubles

Sarah Finney-Ella Sandbakken (Tippecanoe Valley) – Finney and Sandbakken had more singles experience earlier in their career, but they joined forces as seniors and had natural chemistry as a doubles team.
Karley Hallstrom-Maci Parker (Tippecanoe Valley) – Hallstrom and Parker formed a strong No. 2 doubles team at Valley, and they were more athletic at the net than a typical No. 2 team.

Honorable mention singles