By Ethan Harrigan – Staff Reporter

The Jonathan Law boys tennis team wrapped up their 2019 season at the State Tournament on May 24 after qualifying with a record of 10-8.

Coach Dye and senior captain Andrew Ancheta led the 17-person team through this year’s season. The players enthusiastically tackled the challenges of this year with no injuries to inhibit them.

“This year we went 10-8 and ended with a winning record,” sophomore Sanskar Shah said. “Last year we went 7-10, and we continued to grow. With the leadership of Captain Ancheta, we all stayed tough in our hardest matches. Basically, to recap this season, I’ve learned in our hardest games we learn the most, and the easiest matches we practice the most. In any match, win or loss or even practice, we developed as players and people every day.”

The team had eight new players this year including five freshman to fill in spots that had been left vacant by seniors.

“The newer players really shined this year,” sophomore Adarsh Senthilnathan said. “Two players in particular – Daniel Folloni, who played the 3 singles position, and Julien Roy, who played 1 doubles this year. Both of them are really dedicated to the sport.”

The team had a majority of sophomores, no juniors, and only one senior, and had a lot to get adjusted to, so the younger players had to step up.

“Last season was different because we had a lot more seniors,” sophomore Brian Zirkel said. “This year with only one, there was a lot of communication and organization done by the sophomores. Basically, the sophomores were given much more responsibility than last year.”

Sophomore Angel Santiago said that despite the team having its best overall season since 2008, they have a lot more work to do.

“We accomplished all of our team goals and I hope a lot of our players got their personal goals,” Santiago said. “That’s not to say we’re satisfied though because we aren’t. Getting to states was the first step now making it deep into states is the next goal.”

The team now looks forward to their next season, hoping to improve enough on the offseason to be even more of a contender next year.

“I think next year’s season will go better than this and last year’s,” sophomore Anish Sikhinam said. “This is because we have a lot of good interest in the team, and we have decided to do regular conditioning practices over the summer as well as off season during the school year. I believe with the right steps we could be much better off than previous and go further in states.”