Experience means confidence for PHS tennis
PLYMOUTH — Plymouth’s girls tennis team has enjoyed more than their fair share of success over the years and this year could be more of the same.
“We’ve had a really good stream of athletes come through and decided to play tennis for us,” said Plymouth head coach Brad Haeck. “A lot of them had parents that played or siblings that played. We are keeping our expectations high.”
Another strength for the team are the number of players competitive away from the tennis court.
“We have several multi-sport athletes, good competive kids, and girls involved with a lot of things other than sports,” said Haeck. “They are active. They are competitive. They know about time management and things like that. We are excited.”
Still very early in the pre-season exact positions are hard to tell but Haeck has a lot of experience to choose from.
“You know Taylor (Delp) and Elle (Jones) are probably our best players but maybe not in singles,” said Haeck. “Looks can be deceiving. That’s what you need those challenge matches for. We’ve only had really one round of those. You really need those challenge matches and results to see, because it’s about keeping the ball in play. You have a chance to see their strokes and see they’ve improved.”
“Ultimately it’s about putting your best seven on the court, the ones that give you the best chance to win those matches that we need to win.”
“It’s been exciting to see the comraderie that we are starting to build and part of that is that we’ve got a lot of experience at the top.”
NLC champions a year ago, the title is once again on the list of goals.
“We did a great job and battled and fought and ended up winning the conference tournament and winning the conference,” said Haeck. “That is definitely a goal again this year. I think that is achievable for this group.”
The road in the state tournament isn’t any easier.
“Those teams have had success against us. They aren’t intimidated when they play us,” said Haeck. “Tennis a lot of times is just how team’s match up with each other.
Certain teams match up better than they do against other teams. I expect each of those teams to be better than they were last year.”