Mid-Season Update

Overall as a program the coaches are happy with where we are going. We're 37 days complete in our 81 day season (Feb 10 to May 2nd) or 46% of the way there.  Out of 82 matches our athletes have played, we've won 49 of them for a win percentage of 60%.  Let's work hard on this second half of the season to show that Warrior Spirit!  

For the most part the players have done just what we asked back in October; from February through April to commit to the tennis teams as a first priority.  The five seniors have been leading well on and off the court.  Marian and Gabriel have won the highest academic accolades, with Lilly, Amber, and James all performing well academically also. The coaches have all worked hard to be available when our jobs (and health) allowed putting in a lot of extra hours to ensure logistics, communications, transportation, and food go well.  We've found great support with the parents also.  We know tennis isn't the easiest sport, especially for JV parents to sit to wait so long for matches.  Parents have also pitched in with donation funding and food donations.  The Goff family (thanks David & Joyce!) pitched in to help purchase benches (along with County Parks committee) while we've also had some regular food donations from many parents and organizations (thanks Blessed Hope Baptist!).  We are grateful to partner with you great parents to offer a growing experience to these athletes. Our athletes have been admirable in the sportsmanship and their encouragement of fellow players.  The team sportsmanship has been great toward opponents, which is what we expect.  It makes us smile when an opponent smashes a racket and our players say, "Ooooh, racquet abuse penalty!"  We love our whole team staying till the end of the matches doing "spirit tunnels" for the athletes leaving the courts.  We've brought all the players to matches that we said we would bring (last night's JV fiasco was frustrating).  We as coaches are proud of these teams of athletes and parents!

We've begun with season with all tough teams, so we've already had a challenging schedule. Both the women's and men's teams are 2-2 on the season and 1-1 in the district.  We had hoped for a little better in the district already, falling just short of what we wanted.  It means we've got more development and growth to do before the end of April and the start of post-season play to prove who the #2 team in the district is.  Here's an image of the ladies' stats so far.  Please send me any corrections if you see an error. 

Ladies' Stats Observations 

In Varsity singles, junior Lorelei Bouldin is our standout with a very positive match and game win% at the #3 singles spot.  Sadie earned her first varsity singles win of her high school career last night. At JV singles, we're looking overwhelmingly positive, which gives us good hope for the future of our women's team. If injury arises, we've got great substitutes to slide up into those varsity spots. Our doubles is looking about the same as our singles in stats, but with the Rittenberry/Flaminio combo squeaking out both their wins to lead the team in match win%.  Overall, we've won 4 out of 4 tiebreakers, which shows we're handling the stress well.  Ladies, we're still giving away too many points/games on kindness.  You know the rules, enforce the rules on your opponents. It's not mean to play be the rules of competitive sports. If there is a rules question, pause the match to call your coaches over and we will clarify.  We expect our stats to improve over the next couple weeks as we play Van Buren, Stone, Cumberland, and Upperman.  

Men's Stats Observations

In varsity singles, junior Ben Brogden has a perfect singles record (4-0) with Gabriel and Ethan trailing close behind.  Ben has a whopping 75% game win percentage leading all varsity in both men's and women's teams.  That's amazing for a first time rookie! Our guys JV singles is also looking promising, showing good hope for the future. Our singles winning percentage is 64% in both singles and doubles, which is very positive.  The Durfee/Brogden combo is leading the way in doubles.  With an overall doubles game win% of 50%, it means we're not dominating, but we are playing some of the high pressure points better than our opponents. Yet, we can play better doubles strategy going forward (more poaching, pinching, and faking).  We expect our season stats to improve a lot for the guys over the next couple weeks as we play Van Buren, Stone, Cumberland, and Upperman.  

Teams, overall we're pleased and we're proud of you.  If one of our guys matches had flipped the other way last night, we would have been reaching all our goals and expectations at this point in the season.  We're so close to reaching our potential.  We're 37 days complete in our 81 day season (Feb 10 to May 2nd) or 46% of the way there.  Let's work hard on this second half of the season to show that Warrior Spirit!  The future looks bright for White County tennis!