By Ethan Harrigan & Lucas Griefzu – Sports Editors

The Jonathan Law boys tennis is off to a strong start, improving to 9-0 after their win over Hamden on April 30.

The team is led by Coach Maxwell and senior captains Angel Santiago and Sanskar Shah. Through all of their matches, they have only lost four courts for an individual match record of 59-4.

“Our goals are very simple,” Santiago said. “Win and dominate.”

With wins over every Division II team so far, this season is shaping up to be one of the best in Law’s history.

“We want to create a forever enduring legacy that establishes Jonathan Law Tennis as a powerhouse: states, SCCs, transparent improvement of younger players from year to year,” Shah said.

Senior Brian Zirkel said the team has been able to continue with the players they had two years ago.

“We are fortunate enough to have our entire lineup from two years ago return this year, meaning that we have plenty of talented and experienced athletes playing for us,” Zirkel said.

Shah said the team has been working on a day to day basis to get better.

“We hold practices all weekdays and Saturdays when we have no matches and work on noticeable flaws from our previous matches,” Shah said. “Not only does it provide more understanding of our mistakes, but it creates self confidence, as mental toughness is a crucial element to tennis, along with many other sports as well.”

Maxwell is confident in what his squad can do against any opponent that they play this year.

“I’m not looking too far ahead,” Maxwell said. “Obviously, if we take care of what we can control we have a shot at making SCCs, and even winning SCCs, which would be great. And again, if we just take care of business and go match-by-match we have a good chance of being one of the top seeds in Class M, and then once postseason comes, we’ll take it from there.”

The boys tennis team has a new first singles player this year – junior Dan Folloni – and so far he is dominating everyone that he has played against.

“I haven’t found it too hard transitioning into first singles because in the year that we didn’t have a tennis season, I spent a lot of time training to be good enough to take first singles this year,” Folloni said. “My goals for the rest of the season are to make all states. They only take 24 kids and I really want to be one of them,”

While the boys tennis team might be very good this year, they also have an eye on the future. The team has a lot of seniors that start most of the time this season.

“I’m just trying to focus on this season because I think that’s what the seniors deserve for all the dedication they put into the program”, said Maxwell. “We’re trying to develop some of the younger kids I think of like Rishabh [Nair] and Jonathan [Urchida] – a freshman and sophomore that have really grown this year. Working in the middle schools I’ve already talked to a couple kids that are already playing at Milford Indoor Making to make sure that they’re hopefully coming to Law next year.”