On Saturday, September 28th, the Varsity Girls Tennis Team faced the postponement of the Tennis Counties for the second year in a row. Counties were supposed to take place on the 28th of September, but due to bad weather conditions, they were forced to be moved to Friday, September 27th. Semi finals being moved, along with bad weather conditions, resulted in finals being played the next Wednesday, October 2nd. Unfortunately, none of the WMC players made it to finals even after putting up a tough fight.
The Tennis Counties are a competition that the Varsity Girls Tennis Team attends in order to determine who the best players in every bracket within Morris County are. Varsity has five different brackets, some of them including first singles, second singles, third singles, and doubles.
Although, Counties were postponed due to bad weather, conditions weren’t exactly ideal on Friday either. Senior, Lauren Zito, who plays doubles said that, “We had to wait for the course to get, like, dried off,” because of the rain on Friday. The players were forced to spend the whole day at the competition, waiting for the court to dry, and then later playing their matches.
Coach Jacobsen and the girls have been working hard to prepare for counties. According to Lauren Zito, “ We try to implement a lot of what our coach tells us to do because, you know, it’s really difficult, like one like, when you’re playing, it’s difficult to find what you need to change.” The corrections that the girls make are implemented into their matches which results in better scores for WMC. Coach Jacobsen said that Lia Nowak, “…did really well in her first round match, and then she had to play the number one girl in the county, who’s actually right to the state as well. And she played it tough.” Lia Nowak put in the effort, and she saw the results. She was able to put up a tough fight and it got her to round two. She may not have won, but she had another chance to verse some more top players in the state at the States Singles Competition at Mercer County Park.
Both Coach Jacobsen and Lauren Zito are confident with what they have been doing at practice and believed that they
had a good shot at Counties and more competitions in the future. Lauren Zito claims that doubles, which is the bracket that she competes in, takes strong communication in order to succeed, and she and her partner have just that. Coach Jacobsen believed that, “…we had a pretty good shot at our singles team playing very well. Our double teams have improved a lot. So I may be competitive, but there are a lot of good teams out there, and it gets so difficult once you get to a higher level.” Regardless of playing at such a high level, the WMC players put in the effort and did their best.
With more competitions approaching Coach Jabcobsen encourages students to come and watch the girls varsity matches, so come out and support the WMC Girls Varsity Tennis Team and good luck to them in their upcoming competitions!
