NORTH MUSKEGON – There’s a really big difference between playing doubles and singles in tennis.

North Muskegon senior Gabby Gaston certainly demonstrated her skills as a doubles player last season when she and partner Sarah Muzzy advanced to the Division 4 state semifinals. If they had been able to stay together another year, great things might have happened.

But Muzzy graduated and Gaston moved on to singles, where she became the No. 2 player in the Norse lineup this spring.

That challenging transition obviously went very well, because Gaston won the No. 2 singles championship at the Division 4 regional tournament at Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian on May 20, and now will be battling for a much bigger title this weekend at the state finals at the University of Michigan.

She was one of two regional champions for North Muskegon. Sophomore Fia Lindsay won the title at No. 3 singles, as well.

“I was really happy for her,” North Muskegon Coach Cody Liverance said about Gaston. “This was a big transition for her. She played doubles as both a freshman and junior. She’s an established doubles player, and I knew her game could translate. It was just a matter of time.”

Gaston says she has grown as an overall tennis player after making the transition to singles.

“Probably hitting deeper in the court has been most difficult for me,” she said. “I’m used to angling short shots, which is typical in doubles. But I’ve grown a lot as a player in that way, along with having top spin on my shots.”

“I’ve learned a lot. I think I’ve grown both mentally and physically. Being able to work on my singles skills through my doubles skills has set me apart from others. My mental skill for the game has really improved.”

While an individual state title would typically be unthinkable for a first-year singles player, Gaston already understands the pressure of playing in the state finals, and she’s ready to give it a rip.

“It would honestly mean the world,” said Gaston about a potential state championship. “I’m by no means expecting it, but it’s always the goal. I’m really trying to go out there and leave it all out there for my senior year. It would just be a feeling like no other.”

Gaston will be joined at the state finals by her entire team. That’s because the Norse continued their long streak of postseason success by winning the regional tournament at NorthPointe Christian, finishing with 23 points, two ahead of second-place Grand Rapids Catholic Central and five ahead of Grand Rapids West Catholic.

The Norse have qualified for the state finals all five years of Liverance’s coaching tenure.

“I love it,” said Liverance, a 2011 North Muskegon graduate.  “There is nowhere else I’d rather do this. There is no other community I’d rather be in. It means the world to do it where I went to school.”

Last year the Norse did extremely well in the state finals, finishing third behind Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart and Traverse City St. Francis.

They returned 8 of 12 starters from that team this season, so there is no telling how well they might do in the standings this weekend.

“I knew we returned a lot,” Liverance said. “I knew we had some talent. But I wasn’t sure how we’d stack up. One of our goals is to always win regionals, but getting to state was the ultimate goal.”

Liverance said his team’s potential became obvious just after spring break, when the Norse had a pair of impressive performances.

“We went up and played Traverse City St. Francis and beat them just after spring break,” the coach said. “We didn’t have our whole team. Then the next weekend, we played in a tournament at NorthPointe with some of the best teams in the state and finished third out of eight.”

Liverance said the team would love to win a state title, but with so many great teams from private schools competing, he knows another finish near the top of the standings would be outstanding.

“Of course we want a state title,” he said. “I’d be selling us short saying otherwise. But ultimately our goal is to finish top five, and then we kind of pride ourselves on being the top public school. The top five is realistic and we want to be the public school state champs.”