Veteran group looking to lead Huskies

BY BRIAN CARSON Sports correspondent

LEWISTOWN—A veteran group is back to lead the Mifflin County boys’ tennis team into the 2023 season.

Husky coach Glenn Kyle returns eight from his roster a year ago, with two newcomers.

“Except for two kids, I have everybody back from last season. That’s a good thing,” Kyle said. “They know what to expect. They know what to do early in the season. We are better than we were last year. We lost some older guys, but we have seasoned younger guys replacing them. I like our team. This is a fun team to be around, and they will get better as the season progresses.”

Kyle likes the turnout of ten players. Every coach wants more, but ten is a good place to start.

“Ideally, you would like to have 10 to 15 kids. We have ten. We have two freshmen on the team,” Kyle said. “I’d like to get more younger kids out. That’s hard to do here because we don’t live in a tennis hotbed and we don’t have a feeder program. The younger they start, the better they’ll be when they’re juniors and seniors.”

The top three singles are set with seniors Jaron Yoder, junior Quinn Miller, and senior Luke Grove as the 1-2-3.

“They are all back from last year, and they were our top three kids. When you play singles in the Mid-Penn, especially one and two singles, you will always play against kids who have been playing since they were very young,” Kyle said. “So, you’ve got to understand there will be matches you don’t have a chance to win. But you need to learn from that and possibly take it out on a kid who’s not as good. These guys did that for the most part last year, and I don’t see why they won’t do that again this year.”

The three will prove their leadership through their actions.

“Those guys will lead more by how they play because the other guys on the team know they are the better players. They will look at them to see how hard they work,” Kyle said. “There’s not much leadership from a vocal standpoint because once we start practicing, they are never out there together. They spread out over different courts. It’s a matter of looking out and seeing how hard somebody is playing.”

The doubles pairs will be new, with senior Gunnar Wagner and sophomore Landon Mazur in one pair and sophomore Brice Rishel and Kohen Wert in the other.

“There will be two doubles teams who have never played doubles together. Early on, they will struggle until they learn to play together,” Kyle said. “We don’t try to be tricky playing doubles, but there are some things they need to communicate if they are going to play doubles. They will get better at that as the season goes along. All my teams have.”

Other team members include junior Giovanni Zannino and freshmen Morgan Crader and Luke Foltz.

The challenging schedule features the rugged conference matches in the Mid-Penn, but non-conference foes like Altoona and Central Dauphin are on tap.

“Altoona and State College are tough. Hershey is very good. Cumberland Valley is good,” Kyle said.

“How I look at it is this: We play 18 games, and 14 are Mid-Penn. A third of them we don’t stand a chance. There’s a middle third that when we have a competitive team, they will surprise themselves at how tough we make those matches. Then, there is a third of the teams like us. We need to win the bottom third and surprise some in the middle third.”

Kyle’s goal is the same for every team he’s coached - be better at the end of the season than when you started. Kyle wants to see his team continue to improve each match and practice with an increased effort from every player.

“The way these guys have approached it, our starting group from one to seven, I like how hard they try to play. That’s going to be fun for me to watch,” Kyle said. “I want the kids to look back from when the season started to the end and see how much better they are. We want to win matches and all that, but tennis can be a lifetime activity, and we want them to get better as the season progresses. I tell the kids every year the goal is to get better and see what lies ahead after that.”

Mifflin County Boys Tennis Record: 3-13 (3-9 Mid-Penn)

Coach: Glenn Kyle. Assistants: Jeff Mazurek, Steve Hugendubler