Boys Tennis Banquet

We held our end of season awards banquet on Thursday May 20 to conclude the 2009 boys tennis season. It was great that all the boys were there and so many parents and siblings were able to attend.

I went over summer tennis available in the area. There were three things I highlighted:

1) Interscholastic League - Mrs. Schroeder & Mrs. Cassidy are going to spearhead the USTA's Interscholastic league. If you are interested in signing up, please make sure you are a USTA member and let one of those two ladies know. I would like to have Northwestern be able to field at least two teams this year. That will require 12 boys to participate.

2) Rock Hill Tennis Center Camps & Clinics Summer 2009 - I had brochures available for the boys to take home. Please contact the tennis center with any further questions. You will want to sign up soon to reserve a spot

3) The Northwestern tennis courts will be open this summer June 8 - July 23 Mon-Thu from 9am-12noon. If you simply want to play in the mornings this summer, please make a check payable to the school for $20 and have a new physical completed. I will be working with a small group individually during this time so this is not where you would go for instruction. This would be open for you guys to meet up with each other and have open play amongst yourselves. I will not be pairing people up or keeping track of any wins and losses.

We then recognized our non letter winning participants:

Jacob Schroeder, Caleb Guyton, Christopher Cassidy, Jonathan Patton, Phillip Yommer, Ben Leppard, Jacob Page, Collin Schroeder, Key Barkley, Michael Baldwin, and Matthew Pettitt

Letter winners were then introduced:

Seth Russell (4th letter), Drayton Wade (2nd & captain pin), Hunter Love(1st), Brian Fitzpatrick (2nd), Jordan Beaver (2nd), Jonathan Clark (1st), Duncan Foy (1st), Collins Mauldin (1st), Alex Antezana (1st), Tyler Leonard (1st), Ahmad Sheffield (1st & captain pin), and Tyler Hutson (1st)

The All State Academic Team representatives were then introduced. The following boys hold a GPA of 4.0 and above and were recognized with a certificate from the South Carolina Tennis Coaches Association:

Jordan Beaver, Michael Baldwin, Tyler Leonard, Collins Mauldin, Matthew Pettitt, Drayton Wade, Key Barkley, Brian Fitzpatrick, Benjamin Leppard, Jacob Page, Jonathan Patton, and Alex Antezana

We then handed out awards in four categories:

1) Coach's Award - Awarded to the player who stands out as displaying a strong work ethic, strives to make others around him better, and works hard to become better every day. It was my honor to name Jonathan Clark this year's recipient of the Coach's Award.

2) Best Practice Player - The boys voted on who they felt was the player that worked the hardest in practice day in and day out to make himself better as well as his teammates. The team voted Drayton Wade as the recipient of this year's Best Practice Player award. This is the second straight year that Drayton has won this award.

3) Most Improved Player - The boys voted on who they felt had either (a) improved the most from last year to this year or (b) improved the most from the beginning of the season until the end. The team voted Collins Mauldin this year's Most Improved Player. Collins improved his team standing from #12 all the way up to #8 by season's end and it is no doubt that his teammates recognized this.

4) Most Valuable Player - The boys voted on who they felt was most responsible for the success we experienced this season not purely based on talent, but also by working hard to make the team as good as it can be. The team voted Seth Russell as Most Valuable Player of this year's boys tennis team. Seth played 1 singles from beginning of the season to the end. Seth is currently the 90th ranked player in the state in the 16-under USTA rankings. Seth had an overall record this year of 8-6, 5-5 in region at 1 singles and was selected to the Region 3-AAAA All Region Team.

I had a great time working with the boys this year. I look forward to seeing the boys work hard this summer to improve their individual games so that we can improve as a team overall. I don't think it is an unreasonable goal for us to set as finishing in the top 2 of our region next year and having an opportunity to host an opening round playoff match. The amount of work the team puts in during the off season will determine whether this can be accomplished or not.

Go Trojans!