By Rahul Raina, Josh Jaffe and Danny Blumenthal
Sports Writers
After another great season, the Jamesville-DeWitt Girls Tennis team wrapped up this past week in sectionals. This team ranged from freshmen to seniors, who all helped the team succeed with an undefeated regular season in league play. And, as is the case every year, the girls blew the competition out of the water in the regular season with a 18-1 record in their league and a 19-1 record overall.
This year’s team, led by senior co-captains Kyrin Pollock and Karley Platenik, claimed the No. 2 seed in the team sectionals. The team made it to the finals but was short of making states after losing to Oneida. Platenik had high expectations for the team because it was full of upperclassmen who are very experienced.
Even though Pollock “expected [the team] to make the league finals because [they] have so many good players,” she didn’t expect the team to be this dominate. “ I didn’t expect how flexible everyone would be when working with new partners and with some people playing both doubles and singles.” Because of a number of injuries, the players had to be shuffled around and there wasn’t a whole lot of consistency between partners. Although this made playing matches tough, the team was cohesive and talented enough to pull through.
On top of the success the team had as a whole, many players qualified for sectionals in either doubles or singles. Pollock, junior Elise Catania, and senior Samantha Williams qualified for singles. Platenik qualified for first doubles with her partner, freshman Maya Pollock; freshmen Diane Choi and Natalie Alweis qualified for second doubles; and Isabella Melton and Adriana Sotolongo filled up the third doubles spot. However, Alweis sprained her ankle and Williams was forced to take her spot to play with Choi in second doubles leaving a hole at the third singles spot. Melton was also unable to play,due to sickness and her sister, senior Olivia Melton took her spot.
This year, eight seniors, including the two co-captains, Kyrin Pollock and Platenik, are graduating. Some students may be worried that the team won’t be able to live up to their previous successes next year. However, senior Allison Semmel says “we have six amazing players who are below us. They will definitely be able to set an example for the incoming players and be able to win a lot of matches.” Platenik agreed because “now that the freshmen have experience, next year they will be prepared for the competition.” Even though this is the end to their J-DHS tennis career, some seniors may go on to play tennis in college, either for their school’s team, or a club. Kyrin Pollock believes that she “won’t stop playing” whether she plays club tennis or plays for her school. Semmel and Olivia Melton also plan on playing club tennis in college.