Much of Hillsdale’s women’s tennis team will seem astonishingly familiar this fall.
Composed of seven athletes, the team neither gained incoming freshmen nor graduated any seniors, meaning all members have had previous experience on the team.
“We have the same team this year so that’s not different, but the thing that is different is that everyone has the experience of playing a full year, which in college tennis means everything,” head coach Nikki Walbright said. “The more experience you have in match play the better it is.”
After securing a sixth place finish in the GLIAC conference last season, the team looks forward to improving their placing this year.
The team hopes familiarity with college tennis matches as well as team dynamics will give them a competitive edge over the other teams. Walbright said because everyone has had experience, they were able to jump straight into preseason training.
“We were able to start and go straight from where we left off last year,” Walbright said. “There were no new things to learn. Everyone knew exactly what was expected of them.”
Senior team captain Morgan Delp said that
she can see the improvement her team has made in the last year.
“A lot of our girls really improved their strength on the court, especially our sophomores,” Delp said. “They’ve got a year under their belt and they’ve come back a lot stronger now that they know how to lift, and our juniors are stepping into leadership roles as well. I’m proud of them all.”
Changes with this year’s schedule will bring its own uniqueness to this season.
Previously, weekend matches tended to last Friday through Sunday with four to five hours of tennis on each of those days. However with the new schedule, the tournaments tend to be shortened to two days.
The team’s new schedule demanded a new training plan for the summer and pre-season.
“Our coach gives us a very rigorous and intense training schedule, and I think we did a good job of sticking with it,” Delp said.
With the original team and a renewed spirit, the Chargers look forward to their first tournament this coming weekend, Sept. 5-7.
“Our motto is ‘fearless’ this year,” Delp said. “Because everyone has played all the matches before, there shouldn’t be any fear or anxiety. It’s just going out there and doing what we know how to do.”
