Middle School Tennis: A Foundation for the Future

The 2018 Middle School Tennis team may not have had the best record, but they had a great season. CoachJoshua Hartle led the team through good and bad. The members of the team met on the lower tennis courts for practice each day after school and played their home matches at Villa Walsh Academy. Despite the weather, the team was able to have some good practices and surely improved throughout the season. Their opponents included Newark Academy, Pingry, Far Hills Country Day, Dwight Englewood, Heritage Middle School, and Mount Kimberley Academy. Although the season was hard and they lost all of their matches, the team improved greatly as the season progressed.

The team’s roster included eighth-graders Will Robinson, Michael Loughery, Matt Howley, Everen Yaman, Andrew Maguire, and Ikenna Amadi and seventh-grade players Matt Pasko, Will Millar, James Cugno, Joel Saxon, Kevin “Steve” Lee, and Sam Gibbons. Although some of their players were experienced, many of them played competitively for the first time this spring. During most of their matches, they played one or two singles matches, while the rest played doubles. After all of their matches, generous parents provided great snacks, some of which were so appealing that the other teams even tried to swipe them! The Middle School Tennis team will certainly build on what they learned this season as it is looking forward to further improving next season.