By Gavriella Geffner
Staff Writer
The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and many spring sports are deep into their seasons. In the far back corner of Santa Rosa High School, the tennis courts are basking in glory while our boys’ tennis team sets the tone for the 2024 season. It officially started on Feb. 5, with faces new and old showing up to put in the work.
Our team is a fairly young crew, with only one junior and the rest of the athletes being underclassmen. This gives a lot of room for development as a team and as individual athletes. An important factor to the team is the coach, Dustin St. John. He has held the team together with limited players and has kept the funding for the team by being such an amazing coach.
At the same time, unfortunately our team is limited to just five players: one junior, three freshmen and one sophomore. This restricts the team’s playing ability against other schools in the league because they can win a game only if every single player’s match is won. On March 14, we beat our rivals, the Montgomery Vikings, a whopping 7-0. Talk about a victory!
Junior Kyle Bradford is a leader on and off the court. This year being his third on the tennis team, he has been named captain. “Our team is pretty small this year, but in previous years we didn’t have any players, so that’s a pretty big up from what we had in the past.” Bradford has been playing tennis since sixth grade but didn’t take it very seriously until his freshman year at SRHS.
Although our tennis team at SRHS is small, they cannot be underestimated. This season will be one full of development and growth, so the next can be filled with victories.
