Tennis coaches Sharon Wood at Seymour, Erik Stangland of Brownstown Central and Julie Lemming at Trinity Lutheran are anxious to see how their teams perform this spring after not being able to play last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
All three teams are scheduled to open Tuesday with the Cougars home to Southwestern (Hanover), the Owls going to Jeffersonville and the Braves playing at Charlestown for a Mid-Southern Conference match.
Seymour
“They are really fired up and ready to get back on these courts,” Wood said. “They’ve spent almost two years getting ready for the season. They worked really hard in the offseason, and they are fired up and ready for a great year.”
She said her seven seniors are providing good leadership.
“Not only do we have excellent players, but we’ve got good leadership, good attitudes and a willingness to do anything they need to for the team, so we’ve got a lot of experience back in both the junior and senior class, and we’re excited for them,” she said.
One of those seniors is Mallory Moore, who played No. 1 doubles her sophomore year.
“I love doubles. I love that the court is wider, that we can play the whole court and not have a smaller area to play on,” she said. “My backhand is stronger. I play left side. I have way more confidence in my backhand. It’s kind of something that tosses opponents off because I can play a stronger backhand. Not a lot of people do.”
Moore said she likes playing at the net.
“I like to play more aggressive. I think putting the shots away is a lot more fun,” she said.
Warmups before the match are important, Moore said.
“Yes, it’s about getting warmed up, but it’s also about analyzing where your opponents are at, what they struggle in and where they stand on the court,” she said. “It’s about tactics before the match starts.”
Once play begins, winning the first set is important in building some foundation and ground, she said.
“Because a lot of times, what happens is you don’t win the first set and you get more tired and it starts to lag,” Moore said. “So getting that foundation and winning the first set kind of lets them know where your ground is and you’re coming for them helps a lot.”
Other seniors are Sandy Cerino, Ellie Cornn, Kirby Hill, Sydney Musgrave, Avery Ragon and Citlally Ramirez.
In addition to the seniors, there are four juniors, seven sophomores and six freshmen.
“We have a lot of options,” Wood said, adding she has been having challenge matches the past few days.
“Our lineup is completely open,” she said. “We’ve got at least 12 different players within points of being in the varsity lineup, so the good news for our team is we’ve got a lot of players who are at a high level, and we’ve got a lot of players who have court experience, and we also have a lot of players who can play either singles or doubles.”
The next few weeks, she said the coaches will try to figure out what’s best for the team to see how everybody fits into the puzzle and how the pieces are going to go to benefit the team the most.
“We are going to come out strong, fighting hard, looking forward to a competitive season,” she said. “We’re talking a lot about mental preparedness that we need to be mentally ready for a match as well as physically be ready for that match.”
Wood said she tells her players to figure out opponent’s weaknesses and attack those.
“Each day, we see growth in that,” she said. “I’m excited to come to this level. I love their personalities. They’re a lot of fun to work with, and it makes my job as a coach really exciting in that I want to be here every day helping them get better.”
Brownstown Central
Stangland said this will be a rebuilding season for his team.
“We’re a little low on experience,” he said. “Several of the girls that did play in the past didn’t come out this year, and we had six graduate, so when you take out some experienced players and six graduate, that’s eight people off of a team, and that’s a pretty good changeover.”
There aren’t any seniors on the team. The juniors are Hannah Hackman, Chelsea Luedeman and Emily Mann. Hackman played at No. 2 doubles her freshman season.
Luedeman played a few varsity matches as a freshman.
“I’ve been working on my form, getting back into hitting the ball well,” she said. “I like to play doubles on the right side. Communication is very important in doubles, especially when you switch and you don’t hit the ball at the other person. I like to play at the net.”
Luedeman said she wants to help the younger girls feel like a team.
“I like how everybody plays as a team,” she said. “It’s fun to play. It is very important to win the first set. It gets your confidence up.”
Stangland said the focus will be on improving throughout the season.
“Can we improve on percentages just getting serves in?” he said. “Some girls are just learning the game, so instead of being sixth-graders and learning, we’re learning at the freshman or sophomore level. We’re going to do our best to get these girls trained and hopefully challenge in a couple of matches. We just have to see some real improvement.”
The coaches are working with the girls to hit the ball correctly.
“If a girl wants to learn tennis, how to play correctly, just learning the basics, top-spin forehand, hitting a backhand volley, getting their grips correct so they’re hitting the ball the way they want to, those are the biggest things,” Stangland said.
“We’re going back to the very basics,” he said. “We’re just going to have to keep moving further and further along as the season goes. The dedication is going to be the biggest thing. I’m proud of the girls that they’ve been coming out and working hard.”
Trinity Lutheran
Lemming said growth will be important for the Cougars.
“We are hoping to see improvement,” she said. “We have some players who have never picked up a racket before, and they are learning the game, so I like to view them as emerging players, and it feels very promising.”
Seniors on the roster are Becca Brown, Regan Cain, Katelyn Mensendiek and Erin Enzinger, and Lemming said she is counting on the first three to fill leadership roles.
The coach said Enzinger missed one year of playing and wasn’t going to play this spring but decided to join the team.
“She has quite a bit to offer our team in terms of she has a super attitude and she looks pretty promising to me,” Lemming said.
“Katelyn and Becca played together before, and they have a solid sense of synergy. They do play well together,” she said. “I foresee they will end up at No. 1 doubles. It will be a strong position.”
The coach said Cain, who is a junior but will graduate early, and Sarah Lemming will likely play No. 1 and No. 2 singles.
The coach said the other positions will be filled through challenge matches.
“We’ll see how things shake out,” she said. “We’ll have an initial lineup, and if we need to tweak it, we can absolutely do that. We are full of promise. We already have a good solid sense of fellowship and community with our team, and we feel good about our season however it ends up.”
Brown said she likes playing doubles.
“I feel there is someone else to help bring you up when you get down on yourself. There is always some form of positivity there,” she said.
“I like the right-hand side. I like to play back. I have a little more reaction time,” she said. “It’s fairly important to win the first set. If you don’t win it, then you definitely have to push yourself a little harder to catch back up.”
Brown is ready for the season.
“As long as we practice hard and keep each other positive, I think we can have a good season,” she said.