As spring has sprung, the SHS boys tennis team has hit the courts. Coming off of a conference and sub-sectional win, the team is feeling invincible after winning sectionals, and is holding out for the possibility of team and individual state afterward.
“This season has been our best yet,” said Jesse Perez, SHS teacher and boys tennis coach. “Since week two of the season, we’ve been ranked number one in the state, we defeated Edgewood, which was the number one team at the time. Since then, we haven’t lost to any other D2 team.”
Senior Max Reeve attributes a great amount of their triumph as a team to their camaraderie and supportive atmosphere.
“The team dynamic is awesome; we have so much fun together,” Reeve said. “When we’re at matches, everyone would be cheering for each other versus on their phones or goofing off. We’re always there, locked in, and rooting for each other, hoping to get the big win.”
Similarly, Perez credits much of the team’s success to strong senior leadership.
“All the guys have really stepped it up this year,” Perez said. “It’s going to be really tough to think about the team after the current seniors are gone…their freshman year was when Joe [Oleniczak] and I started coaching, so it’s the first year where we’ve coached a grade all four years. They represented a major shift in team culture; it was a completely different culture five years ago, and now they have a chance at winning the state championship. That was all because they started taking it more seriously.”
Despite the success the team has seen recently, Perez says there have been a fair amount of challenges on the coaching side that the team has collectively worked to overcome.
“We have a lot of players who are really solid, so when you only have a lineup of 10 people but also have 18 who could potentially play in that 10, figuring out the 10 to choose is kind of insane. It’s really hard. So, coaches have a really big challenge with that… [mainly because] we’ve had a crazy onslaught of really good freshmen.”
Many of the seniors have been on the team for the past four years, facing many ups and downs. They recently played in the Jim Liang Tournament, beating multiple teams when they didn’t win a single match in the same tournament last year.
“I think that everybody realizes what’s on the line and what’s a possibility this year,” JD Thiel, senior, said. “So people don’t want to let it slip through their fingers.”
While both the boys and girls tennis teams have been met with success throughout their seasons, they have progressed very differently. This has created contrasting mentalities, building more tension for the boys.
“One of the big differences between the girls tennis season is that the girls…who went on to win the state championship…continued to get better and better,” Perez said. “But with the boys, we started out number one, so we’ve kind of been dealing with the pressure, knowing that we have a shot at the state championship.”
The culmination of this year’s freshmen’s skill and the work that returning players put in during the off-season has created a more well-rounded team than those of years past.
“We got a bunch of great freshmen,” Thiel said. “I think everybody’s gotten a lot better. [It’s] all around a more confident team and I think it’s the self-belief and kind of the process and the preparation this year that’s been extremely focused.”
As the end of the season approaches, seniors like Reeve have begun to consider the legacy they are leaving behind.
“A linear positive…relationship [is] how the boys are going to be looking,” Reeve said. “It’s gonna be continuous climbing of that mountain, and our goal of winning a state title this year will hopefully be the same next year in the years to come. So I have no worries for the boys in the future and I’ll be cheering them on.”