SKOWHEGAN — In tennis, sometimes the most overpowering serves and devastating forehands are no match for mental toughness.
Players who can keep their composure and continue to grind can simply find ways to win, and that has been the case for Skowhegan Area High School’s Vasilisa Mitskevich.
“She’s very quiet but she gets it. She understands how things work, and — especially athletically — she’s mentally probably one of the strongest players I’ve had in a long time,” Indians coach Andrew Staples said. “Nothing really throws her off her game. Even when I coach in between sets it’s hard to get feedback from her because she’s just still thinking about the match and only worried about what she needs to do.”
When you have had as many real-life experiences as Mitskevich has, though, it should come as little surprise that she is tough to rattle.
The wise-beyond-her-years 17-year-old came to Skowhegan eight months ago as a foreign exchange student from Perm, Russia, a city of about 1 million people in the Ural Mountains. Mitskevich said she first started looking into the Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX) because it got her out of history class, but the more she studied the program, the more she became intrigued by it.
“I figured out that I really wanted to go to the U.S. to learn more about the culture and learn the language better,” she said.
After a series of essays throughout the application process, Mitskevich was selected for the American-government sponsored program and matched up with Brandy Jewell, the FLEX community coordinator for the Skowhegan area, and her family.
“They’ve been really, really nice since the beginning and they even spoke English very slow so that I could understand,” Mitskevich, who is clearly a quick study in the language, said. “…This family has been so much like my family back home in Russia.”
Brandy and her husband, Nate, have a daughter Clara, 11, and son Bryce, 9, while Mitskevich also has two siblings back home with her 15-year-old sister Anfisa and 11-year-old brother Gordey. Mitskevich said she has had a chance to talk with them, as well as her father, Dmitriy, and mother, Natalyia, about once or twice per month on Skype.
What also helped in the process was this is not the first time the Jewells have hosted an exchange student. In addition to Mitskevich, they have also hosted four others: One from Kazakhstan, one from Brazil, one from Germany and another from Russia. They will host another exchange student beginning in August from Ukraine.
While Mitskevich said the experience with the Jewells has been a very positive one, there were still some things that took a little while to get used to outside of the language.
“People here are very smiley. You just go in the street and you see people coming to you and they actually smile,” she said. “If somebody smiled like that in Russia, people would think, like, ‘why is this person smiling, this is so strange, what does he want from me?’ Here, it’s just normal and I really like it.”
In the classroom and on the athletic fields, Mitskevich has had plenty of reasons to smile in her eight months at Skowhegan. In the fall she was the school’s lone qualifier for the Class A girls cross country championships and finished in 62nd place.
This winter as a member of the Skowhegan girls indoor track team, she built on that and capped off the season with a third-place finish in the 800 at states. According to indoor track coach Dave Evans, who also has Mitskevich as a student in one of his social studies classes, she has been nothing but a pleasure.
“She’s a top-notch student. She’s an unbelievable representative of her country, of her people. Seeing her in the classroom gives you hope that we can have a relationship with Russia and be cordial,” Evans said. “In track, Vasilisa is a perfectionist and works unbelievably hard, harder than anyone else. You could tell she’s had great training prior to. Her basics, her fundamentals are solid.”
So far this spring she is undefeated through four matches for the Indians (2-2). After playing at No. 2 singles to start the season, she challenged up to take over the No. 1 spot, where she has earned three straight victories — one of which a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 decision over Brewer’s Claire Valley on Thursday.
“She hits a lot of balls from the baseline, hits them deep, keeps rallies going really long and that tends to frustrate her opponents because her movement is as fluid as I’ve ever seen anybody play tennis,” Staples said. “You can’t get a ball by her, she gets to everything and her reaction time is great. (Her) technique is fantastic, so even when she is scrambling, she still gets a good shot on the ball.”
One of the bigger changes for Mitskevich was less about adapting her own style of play, but rather about getting used to being a part of a team.
“In Russia everyone is usually individual, so we don’t have any school teams or anything,” she said. “Here the team spirit is just so great. Everyone is so friendly and I really like it.”
Now in her third season with a team, Mitskevich seems to be adapting well, according to her teammates. In a recent challenge match, she edged out Cailee Manzer for the top spot — which Staples noted could fluctuate throughout the season — yet the senior took the defeat in stride.
“I’m in it for the team and the long run,” Manzer said. “It’s been a long ride so far from freshman year. We’ve been on the playoffs side, we’ve been down low so I’m hoping that she can help us win a few matches this year and maybe we can see the playoffs.”
Much like the spring sports season, Mitskevich’s time in the United States will be over soon even though it seemingly just began. She is scheduled to return home to Russia on June 17 and will do so, like most teenagers, wiser thanks to her experiences.
“I just like learning new things, new cultures (and) new people. I think it’s awesome. It’s always so different. It makes you more independent,” Mitskevich said. “I feel how much more mature I became, living without my parents, without people who I’ve known for all my life.”
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.