Netters want to keep building

The Patriots made some big strides last season. Continuing the upward trend will be no easy task.
Jay County High School’s girls tennis team had managed just five victories each in 2008 and 2009.
A year ago, however, they got off to a great start, winning their first two matches for the first time in five seasons. They went on to finish as the runners-up in the Olympic Athletic Conference, and posted double-digit victories as they went 10-8.
The Patriots will try to build off of that mark, their best record since 1986, but will do so with an entirely new group of varsity singles players.
Having lost Kayla Martin and Mariah Clark, the No. 1 and 2 singles players respectively last season, to graduation, Jay County will count on another senior to fill the void. Emily Huntsman, a career doubles player who played at the No. 1 spot with then-senior Becky Muhlenkamp last season, will make the move to the top position.
“She’s going out on a limb for us to try singles, but she’s a very good athlete,” said first-year coach Susan Garringer. “I’m expecting a good season from her.”
Huntsman and Muhlenkamp turned in a successful 2009 season, which included a runner-up finish at the OAC tournament. They also played the closest match in Jay County’s loss to nine-time defending champion Marion in the sectional tournament, accounting for five of the 12 games the Patriots won against the Giants.
“When I watch her serve, she’s placing the serve deep in the court,” said Garringer of Huntsman’s transition to singles. “She’s placing the serve deep in the corners. She has a strong second serve. She has strong groundstrokes.
“She’s a pretty aggressive player and she’s a solid athlete, so I think she can handle the No. 1 position.”
The only other players returning to the team after playing varsity last season are seniors Ashley Caupp and Danielle Chenoweth. They were the No. 2 doubles duo in 2009, and, like Huntsman and Muhlenkamp, finished as runners-up in the OAC.
This season they will make the step up to take over at No. 1 doubles.
“They’re a very strong team,” said Garringer.
“Both of them are good athletes, and they work well together. ... I can see their team strategy is very good. They play the net and they play the back court well together.”
Two other seniors — Rachel Ray and Cindy Hein — will join Huntsman in the singles positions. And the team of Alicia Degler and Kyla McKibben, both juniors, is slated to take over the No. 2 doubles spot from Caupp and Chenoweth.
“They’ve already improved a great deal from the first day of practice,” said Garringer of McKibben and Degler. “I see them as a strong No. 2 doubles team.”
With 26 girls on the squad this season, the lineup is not set in stone. Garringer noted that she expects to have a lot of competition within the team, and that juniors Jessica Ooten and Melinda Penrod are already pushing for varsity playing time.
“What I see happening this season is I think we have a pretty strong varsity team, and a pretty strong JV team,” she said. “There’s a lot of girls that want to play varsity … and the girls are going to have to fight for their positions.”
Being in her first season with the team, Garringer wasn’t ready to offer any predictions as to whether the Patriots could push Marion for the sectional crown. She said she’s hoping her team can put together a second straight winning season while also building depth and expanding skill sets.
“We have to go back to fundamentals because we have a lot of beginners,” she said, adding that those young players are the varsity of the future. “I want to help those girls through the course of the season to get their groundstrokes better.”
“I want some of the players who have only considered doubles or only played doubles to consider singles. … I don’t want them to limit themselves just to the doubles game.”[[In-content Ad]]