With the 2011 season underway, the boys tennis team has promise coming into big matchups against Whitman, Wootton and Churchill later this month and in April. With its first win against Gaithersburg behind them, the team is coming back stronger than last year, with senior Eric Duong and junior Wojtek Bieganski leading the singles, along with junior Jordan Krasner and sophomore Jamie Schmidt.
Tryouts, which had a turnout of about 40 tennis players, provided a lot of young talent that coach Mike Laukaitis predicts will benefit the team in years to come. But with so many new young players trying out, the decisions for the final team proved difficult.
“Tryouts are never easy,” said Laukaitis. “We had a couple of younger guys that came in, which made it tougher. I wanted to keep the team to about 16 and I ended up keeping 20, which is the largest boys team I’ve had.”
With newer talent to come in the future, the team foresees that it will stay strong and continue to grow to foster better players.
“I think we’ll definitely have a good year,” said Krasner. “We basically have the same starting lineup as last year and should be able to compete with the top three teams in Montgomery County.”
Schmidt, Krasner and Beiganski, three of the singles players, have been playing aggressively for the past year, playing in tournaments in the offseason and building up their skills. Having this extra support with player strength will ultimately be beneficial for the team throughout the rest of the season. But what mostly keeps boys tennis going is both intense motivation and maturity.
“We’ll be much more competitive this year,” said Laukaitis. “I see more of a team commitment to wanting to be better doubles players to help us win some of those matches we lost last year.”
The state tournaments in May will prove to be a challenge, as many Montgomery County schools will be sending strong doubles teams to the finals. The rest of the season, however, will not be too worrisome for Laukaitis’ team.
“There will be some really strong tennis played this year,” he said. “We have a really strong team. I hope they figure out how to win.”
![Social studies teacher Timothy Rodman holds a production factory simulation in his AP Microeconomics class. "Students remember running for class president or the mock congress or the production factory much more so than learning topics like circular flow," Rodman said. "[The simulations make learning] very tangible and real and then students down the road are able to use it."](https://wjpitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/IMG_4420-1200x675.jpg)
XRumerTest • Mar 30, 2017 at 2:17 am
Hello. And Bye.