As the tennis season comes to a close next week, the girls’ team will hopefully be finishing with a win. As of last month, varsity had four wins and two losses and junior varsity had eight wins, six draws and three losses. This season they focused on improving their skills as well as bettering their overall sportsmanship on and off the court.

The varsity line up for this year includes, in order by rank, Allison Brazer, Sabrina Dunlap, Hollen Davinsizer, Katie Schwalm, Lindsey Vanhoose, Sneha Padamati, Sara Panetta, Lina DiTullio and Rachel Elms. Among the junior varsity team is tenth grader, Samantha Condrick, at first rank playing singles.

Condrick comments on the outcome of the team this tennis season, “I feel that all the girls on the team are respectful and helped each other improve…the first year players now have one more year under their belts and have made a big difference in improving their skills.”

She feels as if the tennis team doesn’t receive the same support as most other Seneca Valley sports. They have no lights by the courts and although they were redone only two years ago, they’re already cracking. Practices sometimes depend on when the sun will set, some days after the suns down, they run conditioning drills by the lights in the parking lot in order to see.

Tenth grader, Sabrina Dunlap says, “I feel the team has improved in skill and technique, and have bettered our game… I also feel as if we’ve become a better team by becoming closer together and by creating a tight knit group of teammates who work side by side, not for personal gain but for the betterment and well being of the team as a whole.”

Varsity and junior varsity have a match on senior night next week, Dunlap gave her opinion on the upcoming competition, “…They’re a good team, so we just need to continue to play our best.”

She also commented on the Seneca Valley courts, “[They] were redone, not last year but the year before in the fall…they must’ve built them wrong so they’re already cracked and it makes playing tennis difficult because the ball hits off the cracks and makes it hard to interpret which way the ball is going to go. This can sometimes make or break a point.”

Dunlap thinks, “…it would be great if we got lights on the court…because this year for tryouts we were playing…pretty late at night and even though the ball is a bright neon yellow color, it was really hard to see…which made it kind of dangerous. I know that lights are expensive, so that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon but getting the cracks in the court fixed would be really great!”

Both Dunlap and Condrick are planning on continuing tennis throughout the rest of their high school career along with most of their teammates. They encourage others to join the team and fall in love with the sport they’ve grown to know so well.