Tennis rivalry continues as Varsity takes second

Michael Simmons, Blue M Sports Editor

Rivalries are common among high schools. The rivalry between Manhattan High and Washburn Rural continued Tuesday at the tennis quad where the MHS girls Varsity team placed second overall.

“I feel like the team played really hard,” Kate McGee, second singles player, said. “I think the team played really well, I think we worked really hard for it. We may have lost to Washburn, but we still played good overall. Second place is a great place to be, it’s much better than last, it’s a good spot, and we have improved a lot since last year.”

Manhattan High was only three points shy of overtaking Washburn for first place. This was the first time this season that the girls Varsity tennis team went head to head with Washburn. Despite the outcome, the team not only continued with the same strengths as they did last week, but saw some improvement also.

“We consistently cheered on for each other throughout the meet, kept in a positive mindset, played well, starting small and kept moving our feet,” McGee said. “Cheering each other on from last week definitely carried on into this week. If we have down time we are sitting on our blankets watching and cheering, even if they are way down on court six, we would be cheering all the way from court one.”

Between the team competing in two meets last week and this meet occurring on a Tuesday, they did not have much time to prepare for it. But they still managed to stay focused and get after it during practice with a lot of working at the net, in order to improve that skill from the previous week. The team has already has begun repeating that process this week.

“[Wednesday] in practice we did a lot of repetitions of ground strokes, hitting the ball, the doubles team worked on playing a doubles game, playing at the net, playing deep, lobbing it over,” McGee said. “In singles, we did a lot of work with moving our feet to the ball, or if you’re at the t-line and it goes over your head then you get back to return it, so lots of repetition of game like situations in order to get ready for next week.”

The team’s next meet is on Thursday.

“Next week we are going back to Junction City,” Joanna Park, top doubles player, said. “We are going against Shawnee Mission East and South, who are tougher competitors. I think they are in the KC region so we are definitely going to see some tough competitors, but I think we can be a tough team for them too.”