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Seniors Paige Owens, left, and Stella Atchinson will be key components to the girls’ tennis team hopes this season. Photo by Keith Atchinson.
Girls' Tennis
Centaurs hoping
for an ECC Div.
II 3-peat despite
graduation losses
Just run off the list of graduates from last year’s Woodstock Academy girls’ tennis team to coach Keith Atchinson.
Addy Smith, Jackie Trudeau, Logan Reynolds, Sydney Schuler, Morgan Bentley, and Alexa Fernandez all have moved on.
“You’re hurting me,” Atchinson said with a laugh when reminded of those players. “We lost a lot of really good depth and we’re certainly missing those girls already. I was fortunate to step into that situation with them as juniors. It’s going to be a different year. We have a lot of nice, solid players who really want to learn and there has been some incredible improvement from last year for a couple of the girls.”
For example, junior Maeve Lusignan hadn’t played before when she tried out a year ago and didn’t make the team.
“She is going to be in the lineup this year because she has done a tremendous amount of work in the offseason,” Atchinson said.
Senior Paige Owens returns and has shown great improvement as has the only other senior on the team, Stella Atchinson.
Add to that, juniors Ellie Bishop-Klee, Emma Massey and Peyton Bentley and there is a strong returning group from last year’s team which finished 11-5 overall and won its second consecutive ECC Div. II crown.
“We have a pretty good core of five or six girls who I think will be able to help us out when we get into the matches and we have a really nice group of freshmen that are coming up, too. We’re going to get them going on strategy and, hopefully, they can help us in doubles,” Keith Atchinson said.
Bishop-Klee is the likely No. 1 singles player replacing Smith.
“Ellie hits laser beams with her shots and if she attacks first, she will be successful at first singles. It will be a different type of player, Addy wanted to fight for everything and never gave up on a ball. Ellie has the power and will get quicker points,” Keith Atchinson said.
Stella Atchinson, Owens, Bentley and freshman Wynter Worth will compete for the other three singles spots.
Keith Atchinson also has freshmen Kerrigan Reynolds, Gianna Musumeci and Kate McArthur as well as Lusignan to work with this season.
“It’s always great to see such a good turnout from the younger group. We didn’t have any freshmen last year. We have four in the lineup this year, a couple alternates as well, so it’s a really good freshmen group,” Keith Atchinson said.
Can the Centaurs win a third-straight ECC divisional title?
“I think we have a good shot at it. It’s going to depend on the depth, but we’re certainly planning on competing for it,” Keith Atchinson said.
The Centaurs will again play at Pomfret School this season.
That means some late practices and late matches.
Woodstock opens at home during the spring break week as it plays host to Norwich Free Academy at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 10 and follows that up against Lyman on Tuesday, April 11 at 5:45 p.m. also at Pomfret.
“We will take whatever we can get,” Keith Atchinson said of the home-away-from-home setup.
“We may have some one-hour practices, which in the tennis world, is very short. You can’t get a lot done in an hour but we’re grateful to Pomfret that they are able to share their courts with us.”
The girls will also likely follow suit with the boys and play no ad scoring rules and if a third set is necessary, will be playing a super tiebreaker which is the first player to 10 points and players must win by two points.
“It will be a little different but it makes for some fun, exciting points when you get to deuce and the next point wins. Having the girls learn how to play pressure points will be fun,” Keith Atchinson said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
.