Tennis gets season in full swing

Kayla Nguyen 

Sugar Beet staff reporter 

The start of fall has marked the start of many fall sports, many of which have already kicked off their season opener. The varsity girls tennis team, however, are still awaiting their first meet.

Returning from last year’s season are Taryn Tabor, senior, and Carson Linenberger, junior. Adding to the roster this year, for varsity, are Eresay Alcantar, senior, Carole Galia, junior, Hannah Kipp, sophomore, and Sage Riggs, freshman. There are a lot of new faces to the varsity team this season, with only two returning varsity players from last year, in addition to the handful of girls added to the junior varsity team.

“We have a lot of youth so there’s a lot of room for improvement,” Logan Bevis, assistant coach, said.

Bevis’ expectations for this season are to win the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), and improvement within the team and develop a team chemistry. The varsity squad will begin their season on Sept. 8, in Great Bend. The rest of the month of September will be jam packed with meets and tournaments, leading up to WAC, regionals and state in October.

Bevis and Rod Robinson, head coach, have the girls doing a structure practice in preparation for the upcoming season. This includes a longer warm up and more intensive drills, which according to Bevis have helped a lot of the girls improve so far.

“I’m excited and a little nervous, but we usually do pretty good in Great Bend,” Linenberger said.

For a lot of the girls, this is their first year playing tennis.

“I was nervous at first but all the girls are really nice, the coaches are really great, and they shape me into a better tennis player,” Ashleigh Chappel, sophomore, said.

The junior varsity team have already begun their season since their first place finish, as a team, on Aug. 23 at the Dodge City quad. Since then, they have played at home (Scott City hosting) on Aug. 30, and in Cimarron on Tuesday, both capturing a team gold medal. Their upcoming schedule is a home meet on Sept. 10.

The Buffs tennis team have high expectations for this year, hoping to qualify at least two entries to the state championship tournament.

“They’re doing good and I think we’ll have a decent year,” Bevis said.

Kayla Nguyen is a health and trade sophomore. You can contact her at nguyenk3@student.gckschools.com.