The girls tennis team looks to build stronger connections with its players and improve their competitive spirit this season, varsity captain and senior Miley Nguyen said. The girls’ varsity tennis record is 2-2 as of Sep. 18, according to Nguyen.
The bond between the varsity teammates is good, but the bond between the JV and varsity players isn’t that strong, Nguyen said. This year, she wants to push for more bonding events, she added.
“I feel like if we did some kind of partnership where we partnered JV team members with varsity team members to practice, they can get a hang of it and learn from their upperclassmen or higher level athletes,” Nguyen said. “Then, it could help them learn more, improve in their games, and also build connections between younger teammates and older teammates.”
The JV girls team this year has around 20 players, which is an abnormally high number, senior and varsity player Sharlene Trang said. The JV and varsity teams have the same practices, she added.
“I think we do have a bit of problems with space,” Trang said. “Because if we’re trying to play games and challenge each other, that will take up like a whole court, and then other people have to move, and we don’t have that many courts to fit the amount of people that we have this year.”
Junior and varsity player Renne Sun thinks that a part of the reason why the JV team is bigger than normal this year was because the tennis team rarely gets cut, she said. Because there’s so many new players, the social dynamic between the teams have changed, Sun said.
“It’s just not really as close as it was before,” Sun said.
Something that some of the players struggle with is being competitive, as many people don’t go to practices because of other commitments, Nguyen said.
“I’m definitely looking to improve more participation,” Nguyen said. “I feel like there would be days where there’s only half the team on the court because no one else is there.”
One of Nguyen’s goals for the year would be for her teammates to have more fun playing tennis, she said.
“I want everyone to actively collaborate with each other and cheer for each other, and for everyone to just be one big involved team,” Nguyen said.
