With success looming in most Seaholm sports, in comparison, this was a very different kind of year for the boys varsity tennis team.
This season was one of rebuilding for the team.
“Half the team graduated last year,” head coach Jim Slaughter said. “And then this year, out of the 16 players, more than half of them had never really played at a state level. “
Although despite this, the team still had some very memorable moments that shined brightly during their season.
“It was more of a year filled with camaraderie,” senior No. 1 singles player and captain Graham Gettel said. “We had more energy this year, even though we did better the last three.”
And amongst the newfound energy, the team was able to accomplish many goals, as a whole and individually.
“We all picked three goals for ourselves, and three goals for the team,” Gettel said. “A lot of the goals were like place highly at states, or win leagues/regional’s, something like that.”
At Regional’s, the team placed second, not far behind Groves.
Groves finished with 21 points, while Seaholm followed with a total of 17 points.
“Our goal was to win regional’s, and we came in second- but pretty sure that’s about the same,” junior No. 5 doubles player, Tommy Fink said. “But we lost to Groves, which isn’t so hot.”
Fink added that even though they fell short of their goal, the team still played the best they could.
“We still gave it a shot,” Fink said.
In addition to this Slaughter mentioned a few key players he felt that truly showed improvement throughout the season.
“One was senior Blake Keaton, he played doubles, and this year I had him in the singles lineup,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter stated that towards the beginning of the season Keaton struggled a bit with being new to the singles lineup.
Though, after sometime, Slaughter said that overall, Keaton stepped up to the plate and played very well.
“He really was a significant part of the singles lineup,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter mentioned also that freshman Ben McDermott improved greatly as well.
According to Slaughter, McDermott did a quality job of coming in, and doing well. Despite the fact he hadn’t been familiar with varsity tennis previous to the season.
However, Slaughter felt the climax of the season was at the state tournament, held in Grand Rapids at Jenison High School during October 15 and 16.
“I mean, I think you look for one match, that they did well at and I think the state tournament really showed how hard they worked,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter said that during the state tournament, there were some great matches to be seen, especially at one and two doubles.
“Two doubles lost in the quarter finals,” Slaughter said.
One doubles was defeated in the round of 16.
The No. 1 team, seniors Chris Milliken, and Hank Carpenter, ultimately fell to Traverse City Central’s Chris Heimburger and Peter Pappas with a close score of 6-1 3-6 7-6(6).
The No. 2 doubles team, sophomore Kevin Kristopik and freshman Mac Drummond dropped their second match to Midland Dow’s Kevin Winegar and John Templeman with a score of 6-0, 6-0 after a long three set match in the round of 16 to Zeeland East 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
“It was just very exciting, and very emotional,” Slaughter said. “And it was kind of neat to see that they had worked that hard. It was fun.”
Gettel agreed.
“We still placed 9th, so top 10,” Gettel said. “Which we weren’t even predicated to be at the beginning of the year.”
The team finished with eight points, while their rival Groves finished ahead in 8th place with 11 points.
Gettel said that even though they had continual losses throughout the season, each team member was still there for each other, and continued to support one another through their experience.
“I feel like we did pretty good at states,” Fink said. “We all tried, and we all played hard. It was straight.”
Overall, both Gettel and Fink were content with the season.
“I think we had a lot of fun, it was an enjoyable season. We could’ve a little done better, but we had a young team so we were trying to build up the dynasty, you know,” Fink said.
As for the plans of Slaughter next year, he isn’t yet sure if he’ll be back coaching the boy’s varsity team.
He said that next year’s coach has yet to be officially determined.
“I’d like to be back, but we’ll see,” Slaughter said.
