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(BRIAN NUEVO/EYE OF THE TIGER)

Roughly three months ago, aspiring tennis players arrived at tryouts, only to hear that the coach for their entire high school career, Donny Nush, was leaving their team to coach and teach at Oliver Wendell Holmes middle school in Davis. The news came as a shock to everyone as the team was left coachless. Within minutes, players started speculating as to who would take over as coach.

While every player had an idea who they hoped would be picked, it was revealed on the last day of tryouts that Dana Duncan, mom of three-year varsity player Kenzie Duncan, had been named the head coach.

Despite starting the season at a relative disadvantage, given they didn’t have a coach for the first week, the team was able to go undefeated in route to a CVC league title. After nearly clinching first place last year, the team was able to close the deal this year.

Senior Jada Kranig felt that after losing the coach the team was left rather confused, yet fortunately overcame the problem.

“We didn’t know who was going to play what on the team, and we didn’t know what type of coaching style Dana would have,” Kranig said. “It ended up working out really well, but at first we were sort of clueless on how the year was going to go.”

The team knew they had the potential to be a great team, yet many were skeptical on whether or not their new coach could take advantage of the skills the team had. Despite having a relatively rocky start to the season, in which they lost each of their fist four games, sophomore Isabelle Sanders believed the team was ready to go.

“I always knew that we were a really talented team.We set really high expectations for ourselves, but we just didn’t know if the coach would be good enough to prepare us to reach our goals,” Sanders said. “I honestly didn’t think we would be so successful and go this far.”

Despite the team being very talented and hardworking, players feel that their success is also due to the coaching style that Dana Duncan brings to the table. Throughout the season, players were able to develop in a different way than previous years. Before the season began, Duncan made it one of her goals to be more organized and positive than her predecessor, and Kranig thinks that Duncan’s support played a huge role in the team’s success.

“Dana is always really positive. We always have something to work on and something to improve, but she always remains positive,” Kranig said. “To see how far we’ve all come as a team is so amazing.”

After winning league, the team now has advanced onto playoffs and are hoping to reach yet another milestone.