Amid a sudden head coaching change, the Ogden High girls tennis team is learning a thing or two about balancing those emotions, and they’re off to a pretty darn good start to the fall season.

For four years, Trent Porter poured his dedication into the school through basketball, special education and, most recently, girls tennis before accepting the Bonneville High athletic director position earlier this fall. In his place, volunteer coach-parent Adam Belnap, the father of sophomore singles players Bree and Kimi Belnap, stepped up to the challenge of becoming the program’s interim head coach.

Ogden, despite its young core and abrupt coaching change, is off to one of its best starts in recent memory, Belnap said, as the Tigers entered Tuesday’s home dual with Morgan winning four of their last five dual matches (those against Bear River, Bonneville, Box Elder and Northridge). Ogden placed third at its home Tiger Slam event earlier this month.

Bree and Kimi Belnap, fraternal twins and Ogden’s representatives in first and second singles, each dropped to 9-5 on the season with humbling losses on Tuesday.

Each time out is another opportunity, both sisters agree, as their second year of varsity singles features longer matches, stronger returns and more victories this month. The pair are avid fans of professional tennis on television.

“They’re so good, you’re just in awe,” Bree Belnap said.

“You can watch their heads, and you can kind of mirror them,” Kimi Belnap said. “It’s a good way to practice, actually.”

“I was really scared as a freshman; I wasn’t confident at all,” Bree Belnap said. “I didn’t do that (well), because I was scared on the court, and this year, I’ve tried to practice a lot and played in a lot of offseason tournaments, and I came back way more confident in my abilities… We have a year of experience under our belts.”

“You get through a year of it, you keep putting yourself out there, and you get used to it and it keeps getting better and better,” Kimi Belnap said.

Unlike many of their teammates, the Belnap sisters were raised playing singles instead of doubles, the latter a two-on-two matchup which is typically used to introduce beginners to the game.

Instead, Bree and Kimi, born just mere moments apart, have developed their respective games through long, drawn-out contests on the weekends, over break and just about whenever they get the chance to burn some rubber soles against the orange-and-black-themed courts at Ogden High.

“It’ll be a big battle, and we’ll get very intense,” Kimi Belnap said.

“The downside is getting mad at each other,” Bree Belnap added.

Those matches bring out emotions, as you’d expect, and sometimes to a high degree. Learning how to control that temperature, Bree said, can become an advantage against the right opponent.

“When girls get mad, you can kind of tell and play accordingly,” Bree Belnap said.

Where Bree and Kimi agree, though, is that they can always improve, and each wants to see their game raise the bar for Ogden tennis in 2026.

“I want to improve our tennis program and grow it because, when we came, it was pretty small,” Bree Belnap said. “I felt like we’ve built up the team, especially this year.”

Ogden travels to Ben Lomond for its second region dual next Tuesday, Sept. 5.

Connect with Standard-Examiner sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net, X @ctbecker and Instagram @standardexaminersports.