Thursday, February 19,2004 — Page 11
Now serving: Monarch tennis action
Kenichi Yokota
Staff Writer
Women’s Tennis
Kelly Brown, Methodist
Col lege's women’s tennis head coach
has a slogan for her first season at the
helm, “Compete hard.”
The Lady Monarchs have lost
their No. 1 and No. 2 players, who won
the Fall Intercollegiate Tennis Associa
tion Division-Ill National Doubles
Championship, from last year. Regard
less, Brown expects her six-player team
to be tough competitors. “It will be a
new experience for some players, so
they will have to move up to the next
level. We have been training and work
ing really hard as a team.”
“Everyone is going to be a key
component this year. Every point is im
portant. Everyone must come and do
their part this year,” Brown said.
Rather than strong individuals,
Brown is focusing on the strength of the
team as a “cohesive unit,” and hopes
they will compete together well.
Brown has set the two strategies
to improve the team’s chance of win
ning: 1) playing more aggressively; and
2) approaching toward the net. “These
two strategies are something we can
work on to construct points in a game
and to have a better understanding of
positioning on the court,” Brown said.
The Monarchs played in two pre-
The Methodist College men and women
some high goals set.
season tournaments last fall and Brown
saw good effort, and is ready to see
what they have to give this fall if they
put their minds to it.
“Competing hard mentally and
physically every point is all we can do.
We might not play well one day, and
sometimes play a little better the next.
But you can still compete hard every
point in a game,” Brown concluded.
Men’s Tennis
Head coach of the Monarch
Men’s Tennis Team, Mike Roberts and
his 11 players are anxious to have their
photos by Hannah Hamer
's tennis teams have some strong individuuals and
shot at the conference title.
Despite losing three starters from
last year’s team are ready to compete
this spring season. The team has three
goals: 1) to win the conference; 2) to
be ranked in the nation; and 3) to play
in the national tournament.
Roberts points out maintaining
focus is important. While the teams in
the conference have weakened, Mon
archs must keep their competitive edge
against very strong national ranked
teams.
“It’s important that we approach
every match the same. Even in prac
tice, we prepare for
games as if we were com
peting against the national
ranked teams,” Robert
said.
The team is com.-
posed of four experi
enced players and seven
inexperienced, younger
players. Brown forecasts
that this season will de
pend heavily on the top
four players with the
younger ones filling in
where needed.
According to Rob
erts, the match against
Averett will be the tough
est game in the confer
ence. These two teams
have been competing for
the conference title the
last three years. “This year, we’d like
to be regular season champions,” Rob
erts said.
The Monarchs’ first game will be
at 3 p.m. this Saturday against North
Carolina Central, and their first home
match is at 3 p.m. on March 15th
against Mississippi College.
Coach Roberts adds, “We best
kept secret on campus. We have three
conference championships in row. We
had a lot of success last three years.
It’s been amazing. I am excited about
the season.”
As basketball
season
winds
down,
fans
show up