The girl’s tennis team has aced their way into the 2015-2016 season.

   This season is a time of transition because of all the girls playing with the team this year.

  “I feel good, we’re kind of in a rebuilding year. We lost four of our six seniors at the varsity level. So a lot of girls have not had varsity experience, its kind of a learning time for them,” tennis coach Pam Koch said. “We also have 31 girls out, which is a pretty large number and we have 11 freshman out. So, we have a lot of people learning and so it’s a great team.”

   Tryouts were held before this school year started and the players competed in a ladder match to figure out what tennis team they were going to be put on.

    “It wasn’t like a scheduled tryout, they had us play this ladder match, where we started at the bottom and there were different pools, like pools A, B and C. You moved up depending on whom you

played and if you won or not on the team,” freshman Sara Benson said. “If you were better, then obviously you moved to the next pool.”

   Once team placements were made, the team got into a routine for practice.

   “We start with warm-ups, running and stretching, dynamics and then we warm up with our doubles partner, hits and what not, coach Koch will have us work on doubles or singles or specific drills games/ stuff we need to work on,” junior Alex Rogers said.

   Senior Alex Kretsinger has been playing since she was little and described her favorite part about playing on the team.

   “I think I’ve been playing since I was like six,” she said. “I think I like the team atmosphere, I really like the girls on the team and team bonding, winning matches is nice.”

   Sophomore Megan Dolsky also got an early start with tennis.

“I was 12 when I started playing [tennis],” she said.  “I like just being apart of a team and the atmosphere, its a lot of fun.”

   The tennis team has important tournaments coming up.

   “We have the Liberty tournament coming up next weekend, which is a tournament that we host. Then, we will go to Rockbridge in Columbia and a tournament on the Plaza,” Koch said. “And then the last week of September, first week of October, the season is over and we are getting ready for districts. So we have three to five matches in one week.”

   The tennis team has been working hard this season and it shows.

   “We have a great group of girls this year. Almost every match we have played has been extremely competitive,” Assistant Coach Kevin Goodwin said. “They work hard at getting better and we are seeing that on the court as the season goes on.”