The varsity tennis team has a total of nine seniors this year, changing the dynamic of the team from last year, which had none.

The increased numbers of seniors adds pressure to the players in the grades below according to junior varsity player, junior Quinton Huebner.

“It’s weird,” Huebner said. “There’s a big push to do really well because they all want to have a good last year. It makes it a lot harder to be on varsity because seniors have to be on varsity.”

According to varsity player, sophomore Emily Magness, the seniors inspire her to be better.

“It’s good to have so many seniors because I’ve learned a lot from them,” Magness said. “They are better [players and] that’s what I strive to be like. The seniors have all been together as a team longer than [I have], so I feel like I should do my best to be up to their standards and help the team.”
Tennis coach Craig Foster said the group of seniors affect each grade level differently.

“It gives the underclassmen something to look up to and the seniors are looking at their last chance to do something in high school,” Foster said.
Varsity player senior Stephanie Preap said playing alongside the seniors motivate the varsity team.

“[The number of seniors] unites our team and means more to us because we want to try harder so we can go to regional’s since it’s our last year,” Preap said. “It’s fun because we all know each other.”

Although Preap finds the number of seniors encouraging, Foster said there are also bad aspects to having a larger number on the team.

“You lose a lot of what you’ve built on [when they graduate],” Foster said. “It’s almost like starting over. Then again, the good thing is a lot of the JV the next year have a chance to move up and develop.”

JV player junior Matthew Clakley said losing the seniors at the end of the year will be a challenge.

“We’ll lose a lot of seniors and they are kind of on top right now, so it will be hard next year,” Clakley said. “The juniors will be the new leaders of the team [after the seniors graduate] and our coach will expect us to set a good example for the underclassmen.”

However, senior varsity player Ed Jerimeh Loquellano said he has faith that the younger players will step up to the challenge.

“I think they are improving each and every day with coach helping them to improve for the [school’s] future team,” Loquellano said.