For the past couple years, boys tennis has experienced a shortage in players, mainly due to COVID. The boys season was cut short in 2020 and in 2021 sports were forced to overlap, leaving some players to have to choose between two sports.

Tennis did not have enough players to yield a full team last year causing them to have to forfeit some of the matches that they didn’t have enough players for. Senior Mark Lacey noted that this put them at a disadvantage in every match that they played. 

“We had to forfeit a lot of matches, so we were already down and we had to win every other match to win the game,” said Lacey. 

The team only had seven players, missing the four needed to have a full team of eleven players. Senior Noah Karakas realized this was a problem and decided that he would recruit some of his friends to join the team.

“Mark and I were able to get at least three of our friends to come out so that we could have a full team,” said Karakas.

One of those players that is new to the team this year was senior Jake Floyd. Having no tennis experience, Floyd came out to his first practice and started playing from then on.

“This is my first tennis experience, I don’t even know if I have been on a court with a ball and a racket,” said Floyd.

Having never played tennis before, Floyd never thought that he would start playing tennis his senior year, but has found himself on the court with his friends.

“One of my friends was kind of talking about it and then one of my teachers was also talking about the tennis team,” said Floyd. “I was thinking that I might want to do tennis and just having people talk about it and suggest it to me was really encouraging me to try it out.”

Even though this is Floyd’s first year, he has gotten off to a fast start this year, receiving player of the game for his performance against Antelope. 

Floyd isn’t only looking forward to the on the court fun that he will have this season, but also the experience that he is going to have with his teammates.

“I am looking forward to getting a strong bonding experience on a sports team and trying something new that I hope I will enjoy.”