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NS boys tennis is off to a decent start in region with a 3-2 record, and they are looking to improve on that throughout the rest of the season.
“The singles are still developing—we only have one returning singles player, because we lost the other two due to graduation,” said head coach Matt Braithwaite.
Even though the singles players are inexperienced the team is hopeful of what they can accomplish this season.
“There is still a possibility of winning the team title, but there is definitely a chance of some individual region titles,” Braithwaite said.
Boys tennis hasn’t won a team region title in at least fours years, although there have been many individual titles during this time.
“As a team, the main goal is to win region, but Joe and I have set the to goal to win the first doubles region title and make it to the second day of state,” junior Kendall Grasteit said.
Grasteit and Joe Garlick have been doubles partners for two years now, and won the region title last year for the first doubles position.
“We won last year, and are definitely prepared to take the region title for the second year in a row,” Grasteit said.
Braithwaite isn’t just preparing for the current season, but is looking forward for the next years season as well.
“We have a diversely aged group on varsity this year. We have two seniors, two juniors, and three sophomores,” Braithwaite said. “This helps us for the next few years, because boys are getting varsity experience.”
Preparing is important but that doesn’t always mean it is going to be an easy win.
“Tennis is about 40 percent technique and 60 percent mental,” junior Kaleb Cox said. “You have to be able to control yourself mentally in order to let your technique take over.”
Technique in tennis is acquired by hours and hours of repetition repeated multiple times a week.
“When you are on the court you have to be able to take a mistake and critique it to find out what you did wrong, and then you need to fix it for the next point and that takes a lot of repetition,” Cox said.
