Barstow wins an unlikely state championship

By Max Goodwin

Barstow’s girls tennis team made an improbable run to a MSHSAA Class 2 state championship last week and as a result, hall-fame coach Tom O’Brien will have to get his first tattoo.

Barstow faced the two-time defending champions from St. Louis, Ladue Horton Watkins, in the final and won 5-4. Barstow last won a state championship in 2021.

Last year, Barstow only won one match. They were 4-5 after the regular season this year. Their rise to a state championship came as O’Brien returned from retirement to coach again and the team’s top player returned to the court for Barstow.

O’Brien didn’t think the team had much chance to win a state championship this year, with most of the team being pretty inexperienced. He decided to motivate them by accepting a bet that if they won, he would get whatever tattoo they wanted.

As they rode the bus to the state championship match on Halloween, the team was so confident that they spent the time planning what tattoo their coach would have to get. They decided on a pumpkin for the holiday. They sang a song about the pumpkin tattoo.

Junior Sonya Shkuta said the idea of O’Brien getting his first tattoo was motivation to win the championship.

“He did not think we would fight and win, be we won,” Shkuta said. “So, he will get a pumpkin tattoo saying ‘We love you, Coach.”

Shkuta is a foreign exchange student from Ukraine who is in the United States with her brother to attend Barstow. She began playing tennis about five years ago and is playing competitive tennis for the first time. She is co-captain of the team and has served as the team’s No. 1 player for most of the season.

O’Brien retired from coaching two years ago. He came back this year after being asked to by parents. He talked with his wife about it and decided he could return to coaching. Only one player remains from the last team he guided to a state championship in 2021. Atra Biria was a freshman then. Now she is the other co-captain, and a senior.

She is the team’s No. 1 player, facing each opponent’s best player. She sat out most of the season for college recruiting reasons. Biria’s sister, Rose is the No. 2 of the team. Rose is the outstanding freshman of this year’s team that Atra was in 2021. A week before the team won a state championship, the Biria’s won a doubles state championship together.

“It was so much fun,” Biria said. “We play all the time in tournaments outside of high school, so we have a comfortable dynamic. And she’s my sister so we’re really close.”
Shkuta and Biria, the team’s co-captains, were the last two matches left playing in the state championship final against Ladue Horton Watkins. If either one of them lost, Barstow would lose the state championship. Within seconds of each other, they both won.

It took a few moments for them to see how the points would settle, but after they realized they were state champions, and that their coach would be getting a pumpkin tattoo, the joy set in.

“We all contributed,” Biria said. “Each one of us put in something to earn the state championship. It was very much a team effort and it was a lot of fun.”

This is the third state championship for Barstow’s girls tennis team in the school’s history. The boys team has also won one state championship in tennis. Coach Tom O’Brien has guided Barstow to all four of those titles.

When he returned from Springfield for the weekend, he had an email waiting with an attached photo of the design for the new tattoo he will have to get. He plans to live up to his word.

“They got so much better from August to October,” O’Brien said. “We took our lumps during the season but they just kept getting better.”