Free State High girls tennis coach Jon Renberger is flying blind.

The Sunflower League tournament starts today, and the Firebirds haven’t played four of the five Shawnee Mission schools.

Or three of the four Olathe schools.

Or Leavenworth.

For those keeping score, that’s 67 percent of this year’s 12-team field.

“It’s really a new tournament for us,” Renberger said. “We don’t have any big expectations.”

Except for one.

Renberger, like just about anyone else in the Kansas high school tennis community, fully expects host Shawnee Mission East to run away with the team title.

So when opening matches begin at 9 this morning at SM East, Free State and Lawrence High likely will be seeking an important consolation prize – advancing as many players as possible deep into the two singles and two doubles flights in hopes of gaining high seeds at next week’s regional tournaments.

Renberger says he feels the Firebirds’ best chances for doing just that will come in doubles.

Free State’s No. 1 doubles squad of junior Julia Guard and senior Joanna Loewen enter the tournament with a 9-6 record, while the No. 2 team of senior Andrea Koch and junior Leigh Luina is 6-5.

“Both of them have played very tough competition and played that competition well,” Renberger said. “Both of them have quality wins.”

Senior Meghan Bock (7-5) will play No. 1 singles for the Firebirds, with junior Holly Maygers (9-2) rounding out the lineup at No. 2 singles.

LHS coach Dick Wedel also will have a duo that has played winning tennis at the top of his lineup, with junior Lauren Kelly and senior Laura Wilson carrying an 8-7 mark.

However, the remainder of the Lions’ roster has struggled to pick up points this season. Wedel has tapped senior Meredith Bush and junior Kylie Fritzel to play No. 2 doubles, while senior Emily Thompson and junior Kelly Morgan will play No. 1 and No. 2 singles.

Each of those players has amassed a sub-.500 record, and Wedel believes the lackluster showing won’t do his squad any favors now that postseason play is at hand.

“I know that we’re not going to get seeded,” Wedel said. “We’ll just have to get what we draw and then kind of go from there.

“Anything we get, we get the old-fashioned way and earn it.”