By Justin Shuler ’20, staff writer
LVC’s men’s tennis team is having a strong fall season and will look to carry its momentum into the conference individual tournament.
Last year, the team’s goal was to win the Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC), but it fell short of that. So, the players’ goals coming into this season were to be successful in the regular season to give themselves a good position for the playoffs, and then win the conference championship.
“All four years that I have been here, the teams have been really close,” Blake Martin, senior captain, said. “We always been a really tight team. Every year we have made the playoffs, but the success in the playoffs has been about the same each year.”
This year, the team will look to overcome the challenges they have faced in the playoffs. Despite only having four team matches this fall, the team has been working hard and has had great success so far. In those four matches, the team has three wins and one loss. Also, over the school’s fall break, some of the players went to Virginia for a tournament to gain more competitive experience before the conference tournament.
“I feel like our teams have gotten better over the last four years,” Martin said. “But the other teams have also gotten better, so we have just stuck with the competition. This year, we want to win the conference and we think we can do it if we focus and play to our potential.”
The team has a lot of depth and any of the players on the team could go far in the upcoming tournament. The team’s toughest challenges will be against Stevens Institute of Technology and Wilkes University. However, the team is in great position going into this weekend and the players will carry the experience from the MAC individual tournament into the spring season, where they will look to continue their success.