The varsity tennis team has started their season off with the early stats of 3-7.
“Since its a new conference, our main goal is to set up a solid line-up. This is the first year we haven’t had a frosh-soph team and varsity, but now it’s a JV and varsity team. It’ll be helpful to be able to have upperclassmen on JV, as well as varsity,” said varsity coach Jill Tomasello.
Matches can be anywhere from two to four hours long, and they have tournaments almost every weekend. It takes a lot of practice and mental preparation for a long, competitive match.
“We have to get lots of rest, eat a good breakfast, and come to the match with the attitude that you can and will win. Take the match one point at a time,” said senior and team captain Annie Scoltock.
The team and the individual players have similar goals, mostly having to do with going to State.
“It’s both doubles and singles, and we have to place in the top four out of 24. We’re really excited because we get to host half of it here this year. It’s October 14-15. One day, the 14th, is here at North, and the 15th is at Lakes,” Tomasello said.
Even though most people don’t play both singles and doubles, they have to realize that they both have their challenges.
“Singles is usually considered more difficult because it requires greater endurance. When there is only one person on the court, a singles player is hitting twice the number of balls compared to a doubles partner since they play with a partner. Doubles, however, may be more challenging for someone who lacks a strong skillset in net play. Doubles teams must dominate at the net in order to be competitive at matches,” Scoltock said.
Many players are competing at both JV and varsity levels because of the huge amount of girls involved in the program.
“We have 11 girls on varsity, and at least 14 on JV. It’s really helpful to have that flexibility for matches,” said junior Emily Reinwald.
The team is preparing for the NLCC Tournament on October 7-8 by competing hard in all their upcoming matches.