As fall sports start to end during the month of October, the boys tennis team also finished up at their regionals tournament in Grand Blanc, Michigan. This past spring, many seniors graduated and left the team leaving almost all varsity slots open, but also susceptible to defeat from teams with lots of upperclassmen.

  “It was rough, we took a lot of losses but we had probably one of the most fun tennis seasons that our team has seen in a while,” Junior Alex Alvarado said, who is number three singles on the varsity team.

  Traverse City has lots of interest in tennis, but a large percentage of it has accumulated at Central and St. Francis. Both the girls and boys teams have had a low interest for many years.

  “On the west side of town, it’s been shown that there [are] not as many people interested in tennis as Central’s school does and we just simply don’t have enough participation for a full team but next year we are hoping to expand our team and get better as a group,” Alvarado said.

  There is still hope for success in the next school year with the team willing to put in the hard work and perseverance throughout the off-season.

  “The Y[MCA] has some good programs and a lot of my friends do that so I think it will really help us out if the whole team does it,” Alvarado said.

  Although the team did lose many times, it did not ruin their season and they all still had fun on and off the court.

  “There’s a lot of freshmen that we really got to know this year, and now that we’re able to do overnight trips again we had a lot of time to really get to know our teammates and it was just really fun and we had a good time,” Alvarado said.

  The team hopes that they can recruit more members so their team can have more success against bigger programs across the state in the coming years. The lack of enthusiasm in participation was inevitably what caused the gap in the grade levels who played this season, so, if possible, they can encourage more to join for next fall.

  “Play tennis next year! Please,” Alvarado said.