Boys tennis

Boys tennis won the state championship last year, and this year they plan to do it again. Senior captain James Lowe said they are working to devise a strategy to repeat their championship.

“This year since we came off of a state title, we’ve refined our strategy more in determining how we will get the best finishes,” Lowe said. “I think [head] coach [Ted Fabiano] has also been able to strategize better with making the singles and doubles teams based on who else is playing singles and doubles from the other schools, who’s our biggest competition.”

Fabiano said they are accepting the challenge of being previous state champions. He said other schools’ teams tend to play harder against the previous winner, so they must be ready for tough matches.

“I think what we’re trying to do is take it as a challenge and a responsibility to represent ourselves like we’re champions and to take the challenge that when you win like that, teams want to play harder against you,” Fabiano said.

The team has a lot of younger players this year that were not on the state team, so Lowe said he hopes for them to gain enough experience to do well once he is gone.

“This season, our main goal is to win state but since we’ve got a lot of younger players we also want to give them experience and develop them so that they’ll be able to possibly win state in future years after we’re gone,” Lowe said.

Fabiano said he hopes for the boys to surpass the challenges ahead and do well.

“This year isn’t going to look like last year,” Fabiano said. “Even if it’s as successful as last year, every year is different in terms of what you need to do to overcome things, so there’s no formula for doing things the same way we did last year.”