After winning the Pacific Division title a year ago, SBHS boys tennis coach Chris Yoder knew 2013 was going to be a very different story. On Tuesday, the Balers 0-14 season came to a close with a loss to Carmel at the Ridgemark Tennis Center.
Regardless of the sluggish season, the Balers, who will only graduate two players, did learn a lot from their exploits, Yoder said. In 2014, the team should be much better because of the struggles.
“Our new experience in the upper division has been humbling and educational all at once,” Yoder said. “I’ve seen huge improvements. Eleven of these guys have never played tennis before the start of the season. And they’ve all gotten better.”
Unlike a year ago, Yoder knew the expectations should be low coming into the season, he said.
“Last year, I told the team if they weren’t’ going to win it that year they were never going to win it,” he said. “This team, I told them we were going to struggle but we needed to set out to play better.”
The results weren’t pretty on the scoreboard, but next year it will all be worth it, No. 1 singles player Andrew Panger said.
“Well, this year was more of building year for us,” he said. “We got a lot of new guys. This year, we really focused on building the team for next year. We are in the upper division this year but we will fall into the lower next year. We will be ready for the following year.”
As a former doubles player, Panger’s transition to a singles player started slow, but he has played better, Yoder said.
“I hope he starts playing tournaments,” Yoder said. “He needs to play tournaments if they want to be competitive in the higher levels. That’s what everybody does. If they expect to be successful, they have to get with the program.”
For Panger, he expects to find more success in his senior year next spring, he said.
“Even though we didn’t get the season we wanted this year because we lost a lot, we are going to take the skills we learned form these guys,” Panger said, “and we are going to be able to use the skills we learned this year to beat all the opponents in the lower division.”
Yoder expects improvement as well in the Pacific Division.
“We will move down to the lower division and we will be really competitive after playing all these teams,” Yoder said.
