Girls varsity tennis looks to fine-tune their skills for the upcoming season with the guidance of their new coach, Scott Howard, after a 2-5 loss to Palo Alto High School on Aug. 31.
“Coach Scott is good, he’s a lot more intense [than the team’s previous coach], but I think that’s going to be really good for this team. Sure, sometimes the drills we do can be really exhausting, but if we really care about this team and really want this team to progress, we need to stick with it and do whatever we can,” said senior Snehal Pandey.
After rallying on the court through her serves and returns, Pandey lost both of her sets to her Palo Alto opponent. However, her fellow Lady Scots were immediately on the sideline encouraging their teammate as they began to focus on rebounding from the loss.
“A lot of us need to work on our consistency and really staying through it. I know we’ll get through it, we just need to work harder in our practice and really push ourselves,” said Pandey.
Two players, in particular, freshman Annika Lin and junior Sandra Strongin, demonstrated that perseverance during their matches. Both players played a tiebreaker set against their Palo Alto opponents, Lin recovering from a loss in her first set and Strongin defending her initial lead.
Freshman Lin said, “During this match, I never gave up and just kept siding, even though I lost. The most important thing is to never give up. Even if you’re losing, give it your best shot.”
Jessica Ma, the team captain and senior, looks at this defeat as a way to improve: “We’re going to try our best to win all of our league matches; this is a pre-league match. I think we did really well, this is kind of a tough school and we tried our best.”
The team remained supportive throughout the match and cheered on every player.
Ma reflects on the positive outlook of her team: “Before every match, we do our team cheer and remind each other to not be nervous. Everybody is just very supportive; we have a good team this year. I think the most important advice we get is to just have fun. I think that’s the most important thing because if you get too nervous, you won’t do too well. Just do your best and have fun.”
These Lady Scots will keep their goal for the upcoming season in the forefront of their minds as they continue to focus during practice.
Pandey added: “I’m hoping we can get through the second round of PALs, which we haven’t done since my freshman year. I do think we have the potential to stick it through if we work ourselves hard enough.”
Girls tennis plays Woodside High School away next Friday on Sept. 8.
