Men’s and women’s tennis: causing a racket
By Elizabeth Cotton
Staff Writer

Women’s

With a strong team and a positive attitude, the women’s tennis team is going to be the team to beat in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Championship.

“They’re in a position to contend for the title of the MIAA,” said Coach Bob Adkins. “The four teams that are going to contend for the MIAA are ourselves, Calvin, St. Mary’s and Hope.” He also mentioned if they do well they have an excellent chance of making it to the regionals.

Tracy Gray, Sterling Heights senior, and team captain said the team has a lot of good freshmen and experienced upperclassmen. “We have a very strong team this year,” Gray said. “With our depth we will definitely be a tough team to beat in the league.”

Karen Dumas, Jackson freshmen, said the team has been working on several drills in practice so they can meet their competition head on. “We’ve been doing a lot of cross court drills in order to improve on our ground strokes,” she said. “We’ve also been doing some overhead drills and we’re trying to work on our first serve percentage.”

“We’re also working on how to simulate a match situation,” Gray said. “It is important to work on the fundamentals of the game in order to be able to apply them to the actual matches we play.”

The team realizes it is important to be mentally as well as physically prepared for a match. “In tennis it is different because each player is an individual but their total points earned adds up for the team,” Adkins said. “We try to have each player mentally and physically prepared before going into a competition so they’ll always be ready.”

The team would like to encourage everyone in the campus community to come and watch their matches. “We have a lot of skill this year so the crowd will get to watch some great tennis,” Gray said. “We only have a few home matches so we would appreciate all the support we can get.”

Albion will be hosting Carthage at 1:00 p.m. on March 3.

Men’s The men’s tennis team is swinging into action with high standards and a positive outlook on their season.

“I think we have a solid team this year and I’m looking forward to a good season,” said Steve Sexton, Jackson senior, and team co-captain.

“I feel this year we should definitely improve from last year,” said Ryan Broccolo, Huntington Beach, Calif senior. “We have two new freshman. Everyone is healthy, so it looks good.”

The team has high standards set for their season. According to Coach Bob Adkins, they want to improve on what they did last year. “Two of our goals are to defeat Alma and Calvin,” Adkins said. “We lost close scores to them last year and we feel we’re a little bit better than what we were last year as a team.”

Adkins also mentioned that they also want to be able to compete with Hope and Kalamazoo. “We’re just trying to improve every time we go out.”

The team has been working hard in practice in order to be physically and mentally ready for matches. “We’ve conditioned more this year than previous years. We focus on every aspect of the game,” Sexton said.

Broccolo mentioned that Jerry Block, men’s soccer coach, is one of their assistants and is helping them get into good shape. “This is the first season we have a conditioning coach as an assistant,” Broccolo said. “He is helping us get into shape physically. We have been doing a lot more running this year which should pay off down the road.”

Sexton said that the team is continuing to stay united. “We are trying to focus on staying united as a team and encourage one another.”

He also mentioned that the team is going to continue to work hard through the season to reach their goals.

The team would like to encourage the campus community to come and watch their matches. “They will get to watch some good tennis and best of all it’s free,” Broccolo said.

The next home match will be played on March 3 at 5:00 p.m. against Walsh.