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BOYS’ TENNIS PREVIEWS: Greencastle shuffles pack with more experienced roster; South Putnam adds position to lineup with additional roster member
Another sport that sees postseason changes on the horizon, both Greencastle and South Putnam will be changing sectionals and will see further changes from the regional onward starting in the 2023 season.
The Tiger Cubs and Eagles will now head to a four-team sectional held at Mooresville, facing the Pioneers and Martinsville. From there, the sectional winner heads to Brownsburg, as do any No. 1 singles or doubles individuals that are not defeated in the sectional round.
Greencastle
The Tiger Cubs trended toward the lower end of the WIC leaderboard in 2022 with a roster that was juggling several players at new positions and is in a similar spot with No. 1 singles and doubles, along with No. 3 singles, having been helmed by seniors.
Greencastle head coach Anette Munoz said a squad with multiple returning players and a pair of solid newcomers had gotten off to a good start to the season but needed to get into the groove quickly.
“It’s been pretty consistent,” Munoz said. “I’ve seen growth in hustle, consistency and the boys becoming much more focused as we go.
“We have two new team members and everyone else returning but we’re still fairly young. We do have five seniors but not all have played for four years, so we’re still a bit inexperienced, but we’re excited to see who fills the open positions we have.”
Jay Glotzbach returns after spending much of 2022 at No. 2 singles and will compete for the No. 1 singles spot while Joel Hammond and Paul Lewis played at No. 2 doubles throughout the previous campaign.
Joining the trio are seniors Mason Howard, Daniel Johnston and William Johnston, juniors Caleb Crowder, Tristan Norman, Kyle Brentlinger, Mitch Staggers and Gabe Dewey, sophomores Zyier Canty, Keita Noro and Lukas Shrout and freshman Griffin Beasley, with Munoz pointing to the second week where the players would sort themselves out.
“We’re starting challenges this week,” Munoz said. “We have a strong incoming freshman in Griffin Beasley, who gets the ball back quite a bit, and is very athletic. Keita Noro, who moved in around the semester last year, is a sophomore with a pretty consistent stroke.
“We have a lot of sophomores and juniors fighting for positions and I’m excited to see how these matches turn out.”
“We have a bubble of about five or six guys who are around the same skill level and this week will determine who plays singles or doubles,” Greencastle assistant coach Holton Miller added.
While the positions weren’t set in stone quite yet, Munoz said the group was moving along quickly with a squad chalk full of returning players getting into things faster than the previous year.
“It is nice to have an experienced group when we run through drills,’ Munoz said. “They can help explain drills or be the first to run through a drill some of the kids might not know.
“The leadership is good. We’re excited for our seniors to have a good season and one of those who is showing the most in terms of leadership is Joel, who has a lot of spunk, is a positive entity and the boys look to him for his leadership.
“If we try to match him, we’ll find that energy and have some success this year,” Munoz added.
Climbing the conference standings was not out of the question as Greencastle finished 2-6 in 2022 but Munoz said the players needed to get settled in quickly and continue on the growth they showed last season.
“It’s going to take a lot of work,” Munoz said. “We had a lot of seniors last year that had a lot of consistency and we hope the boys can show us what they’re capable of.
“We’ve done more drills and skill-based activity in the first week, so the second week is going to show us where our strengths and weaknesses are. We’ll build from there and hopefully have a successful start.”
South Putnam
While not yet up to a full team to start the second week of the tennis season, the Eagles are trending in the right direction with a five players on the roster currently, allowing the team to field four positions each match.
South Putnam head coach Johnnie Briones said the players were a bit on the inexperienced side but were putting in plenty of effort in the early going.
“So far, so good,” Briones said about the opening weeks of practice. “We have some first timers and they’re coming along really well. We’re excited for them.
“We haven’t gotten into challenge matches yet but have focused on drills. We’ve been working on ground strokes and serves but the guys are doing well and I’m excited for them.”
No. 1 doubles pairing Luke Hutcheson and William Schurtter return for South Putnam, the pair moving into singles play and will likely hold down the top spots to start the year.
“They’re looking pretty good,” Briones said of his two returning players. “I’m excited to see how they do as they’ll be competing for the No. 1 singles spot. We’re excited to what happens there.”
Aiden Brinkman joins the squad as a freshman Brayden Pollock and Grant Jackman,
“Aiden played some tennis in the summer, so he has a bit of a jump on the other two,” Briones noted. “Braden and Grant are new to the game, though you can tell they’ve played some tennis.
“They’re making really good progress.”
While not a complete team yet, Briones said the squad would be able to offer an additional position in matches, giving the players plenty of chances to gain valuable varsity experience, especially with no seniors on the squad at present.
“We’ll probably go with three singles players and a doubles team,” Briones said. “We’ll be forfeiting the No. 2 doubles spot, though it will depend on what other coaches want, but more than likely it will be full singles with a doubles team.”
Regardless of setup, Briones said it was important that, regardless of record at the end of the year, the players get as much as possible out of each practice and match as the season moves along.
“The main thing is to improve day in and day out,” Briones said. “We want to finish the season knowing we were playing really good tennis.
“We want to work hard, improve and be competitive every match. Most importantly, it’s about improving our game every match.”