Starting the season with aces

The Superior/Alberton tennis squad came out in their opening week of match play firing on all cylinders.

According to Head Coach Rick Berreth, everyone on the team has improved from where they were last season.

“I’m really pleased with how this week went,” Coach Berreth said.

The Mountain Cats dominated in all three duals this week – including in a pivotal meeting with division rival Loyola Sacred Heart.

According to Coach Berreth, although match play is important to a certain extent more important in the match against Loyola was the performance of his number one single and doubles players.

“They were really the biggest matches of the season,” Coach Berreth said.

In the number one matches on Friday against Loyola, both Emma Wooldridge and the duo of Hillary Stevens and Myranda Kuhl found themselves behind early and scrapped back to win – a lesson Coach Berreth said is essential to learn this early in the season.

“We don’t give up and that is the biggest thing,” Coach Berreth said. “This was a good time to get down and experience how that feels especially if they want to do well in state. They will have to be ready to do that again.”

In a particularly exciting match, the number one doubles squad of Stevens and Kuhl found themselves down 4-1 in the first set.

However instead of losing focus on the goal at hand and dropping the set, the duo kept fighting.

According to Stevens, the conversation between points was essential to the comeback.

“Myranda and I keep focused by communicating to each other what our strategy is throughout the entire match,” Stevens said. “We are constantly talking in between points and in between games in a set.”

The conversation paid off and the doubles squad slowly but surely fought back to make the set even.

In order to do so they had to fight through several games that went to deuce and eventually had to win a tie-breaker game to grab the set.

“Coming back to win Friday’s match validated the talent and teamwork Myranda and I have as a team,” Stevens said. “My expectations for the rest of the year are very high because of that.”

Number one singles player Emma Wooldridge dropped the first set 3-6in her match against Jocelyn Caldwell but built momentum towards the end of the set that enabled her to finish the match with two set victories in a row.

“Our entire team is doing very well,” Stevens said. “We have almost everyone back from last year and with most of the varsity being seniors, we work hard every day at practice to finish this year strong.”

The Superior/Alberton tennis team has two home duals this week beginning Friday at four against Mission.