End of Season Wrap up

It was great to see everyone after a couple weeks away. Again, many thanks to the Cox's & Orr's for all their wonderful efforts to set up the banquet for us. It was a great setting and the food and service was top notch at Old Town Bistro. Also, thank you to Mike Lowery for a wonderful blessing prior to the meal.

To recap the evening, we acknowledged JV and awarded varsity letters. We also acknowledged winners of four individual awards as follows:

The first award handed out was to Hillary Tindall for the Coach's Award. I thank Hillary for being a great team player, always seeking to be a better tennis player, and being willing to help out in any way possible for the team.

The second award handed out was for our Most Improved Player. I asked the team to vote on whom they felt was the player that had either improved the most from the beginning to the end of the season or from last year to this year. The recipient of this award was Randi Honeycutt.

The next award handed out was to acknowledge the team's best practice player. The team voted Chandler Green as the player they feel pushes herself and her teammates daily in practice to be a better tennis player.

The final award of the evening was to acknowledge our team's Most Valuable Player. This award was to acknowledge the player whom was most responsible for the success we achieved as a team this season. Her teammates voted Maggie Orr as the MVP of the 2008 Northwestern tennis team.

I spoke with several girls after the presentations were complete and went over some off-season recommendations for improving and training. To pretty much everyone, her is what I would recommend:

1) Keep yourself physically fit year round. Daily running, sit ups, & some weight training will make the biggest difference for most of us.

2) Keep yourself involved with the game. Some girls are already signed up for clinics and lessons. As a rule of thumb, a varsity high school player will work on their game 2-3 times per week. A good high school player will treat tennis as a part time job (20 hrs/week) during the school year and a full time job in the summer (40 hrs/week).

3) Continue to challenge yourself in competition. The Rock Hill Tennis Center puts together team tennis leagues in the spring and summer. Most of the competitive teams in South Caroling have anywhere from 4-11 girls that play competitively in USTA tournaments on a year round basis.

4) I'll be in contact near the end of the school year to go over summer practice plans (June & July). I am envisioning something similar to last summer, but I am thinking about summer conditioning sessions as well. I just don't know what my schedule will be yet so I don't want to confirm anything at this point. Once I know, I'll post something here and email everyone.

Thanks again for a great year. Go Trojans!