The tennis team dominated its local rival by sweeping Heritage 8 to 1 Sept. 26 The team celebrated their victory with a bang.

“We went to one of the girls’ mom’s bakery afterwards and we all had dinner together,” sophomore Teagan Ruby said.

So far our girls’ team boasts a .6% win rate, and this great victory against one of our cross-town rivals boosted our standings even more. They have won 104 games out of the total of 196 matches they’ve played so far.

“So far it’s been good, and it’s helped us a little bit because it will send us to the playoffs. It’s not much of a change from last year cause we are the second place team, and it’s usually the top two teams in the conference that make it, but they are expanding and adding 64 instead of 32, which gives more teams an opportunity to compete in the playoffs,” coach Brian Lesh said.

This is not the end for our tennis squad though. This domination of Heritage gives them more confidence entering the post season. 

“One thing that we have not accomplished that I’m looking forward to is hopefully making it to the second round of the team playoffs, and hopefully getting a win in that second round,” Lesh said.

Junior Heera Gopinath says the number one trait you need to have for this sport is patience and to hold out until the other person gives out.

“Tough competitor I had was hitting the ball really hard at me, so I tried to hit too slow back so I could keep the point going,” Gopinath said.

On everyone’s journey, one may make mistakes, and the team’s season is not excluded from that fact. 

“The first time we played Wakefield we lost, but then the second time we crushed them, so we could’ve definitely beat them,” junior Hadley Peobody said.

Each of the players has their own way to prepare for a tough match like listening to music or watching other players play, but some of them are more simplistic than that.

“I normally just try to warm up really well and chug a Gatorade,”   Emma Smith said.

This year brought some changes to their team: new players, new competition and new rules. These changes gave way to a confident squad. 

“I think we were pretty good. I think we were definitely more unified this year. We all got along, so that was really easy, and all the new girls really meshed well. I feel like since we all got along well outside of tennis, it just made it easier to perform in matches,” Ruby said.