The Jesuit Ranger Tennis team continued its hot start to the season as it defeated Richardson Berkner last Tuesday, September 4, 16-1. The exceptionally young team, featuring 7 freshmen on varsity and two newcomer juniors, dominated Berkner, only losing one set. The win brought the Rangers’ record to 3-0 for the season as they were led by freshmen Fredirico Pier, Chris Ayres, Adam Bartlett, and junior Buck Lyon.
Unfortunately later in the week the Rangers experienced their first loss of the season as they were defeated by the Allen Eagles 17-5, Friday September 7, bringing their record to 3-1. Winning matches for the Rangers were Nick Garza ’14, Andrew Chittoor ‘14, Bud Dalton ’14, and Jackson White ’15.
Coach Paul McDaniel is optimistic about the team’s performance thus far: “The major purpose of the fall part of the season is to build team chemistry, find out who the leaders are, and who the people are that can be counted on in tough situations so that in the spring when we go to a tournament format and players must specifically play either singles or doubles, we know who will give us the best opportunity to win district. Ultimately that is our goal, district in the spring, we have won the last two years and we expect to win this year even though it will be a little bit tougher since we lost eight seniors, which is just a lot of experience to lose in one year, but we feel very confident because our players are playing hard and working hard in practice.”
