Preview - Boys' Tennis
Centaurs return
experienced
It was a little difficult for Woodstock Academy boys’ tennis coach Siana Green at the start of last season.
She had players out for the team but how much they had played the sport prior was a bit of a concern.
Fortunately for Green, that is not the case this spring.
“Every new player I have has some experience with tennis,” Green said. “Some of my doubles teams last year were picking up a racquet for the first time or had a played maybe a little bit in elementary school.”
It makes it a bit easier to overcome the losses of three singles players in Owen Rigney, Cang Nguyen and Ethan Staples.
The Centaurs will have an ECC Div. II All-Star back to lead the singles group. Senior Tyler Chamberlin returns to the fold.
Chamberlin was just hoping to be the Centaurs No. 1 singles as he was locked in a battle for that spot with senior teammate Adriano Peniche.
It was an internal battle that he did prevail in.
The Centaurs finished 5-9 overall and were 3-3 in the ECC.
Peniche will be at second singles with Ryan Chabot moving up from doubles to third singles and Ashley Abrams will be the No. 4 singles player.
“The biggest concern, right now, is just getting doubles ready." Green said.
Owen Murdock, Carlos Rodriguez Camacho, Heath White, Cayden Worth, Daniel Jameson, Leo Larkin and Stevie Wilmot are competing for doubles playing time.
Larkin, now a senior, was one of the newbies a year ago.
The reason Larkin came out as a junior was Chamberlin who told him the tennis team needed players.
“I said, ‘Why not?’” and just joined up and it was super-fun,” Larkin said.
It is easier in one regard to learn the sport at Woodstock.
The team doesn’t have to worry about battling the elements like most high school teams must do in the early spring because it does get to play indoors at Pomfret School.
However, the team did get to go outside a couple of times early this season and that could also help.
“We got a chance to play out in the wind a little bit which tends to be our weak point when we start playing matches. We are so pampered from being indoors that we don’t get used to the wind and temperature,” Green said.
It’s the fourth year for the Centaurs at Pomfret School and if the Centaurs ever do get courts of their own, it may be hard to say good-bye to.
She and new girls’ head coach Dena Cocozza O’Hara know each other well, in fact, Green learned tennis from O’Hara.
The Centaurs just missed out on the state tournament a year ago but Green has a bigger goal she would like to accomplish.
“I really want to get that (ECC Div. II) title. We haven’t done that well against Ledyard and now that Montville is in the division, too, and we’ve struggled with them but we haven’t had a big talent drop. My third doubles could play first doubles. I have three people who could play fourth singles and those are good problems to have,” Green said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
caption:
Tyler Chamberlin, left and senior Leo Larkin. Photo by Marc Allard/Woodstock Academy.