Tennis Senior Night Celebrating Class of 2019, First Conference Title
The William Chrisman girls tennis team is in the final weeks of the most successful tennis season in the school’s history. This season has been years in the making and was not an easy feat.
“It’s not my success,” said head coach Jason Grubb, who has worked for the past five years to build the foundation for all the success that the team is now seeing. Although he refuses to take any of the credit and instead turns it all back to his players.
The hard work of the athletes has lead to the varsity team to have a record of 9-3, to be the undefeated conference champions, a title from the Belton tournament and a title from the William Chrisman Invitational. The junior varsity team has shared in the success with a season record of 10-1.
In Grubb’s second year of coaching, there was a group of four seniors that began the journey to the winning season. They joined the team their freshman year and were forced to step up to the top of varsity the next year, as almost the entire varsity team and a few key jv players graduated.
“It's incredibly rewarding to finally have it all pay off, we've gone through a lot in the last few years that has prepared us all for this season. We've taken a beating for the last three years with all the growing and developing we've had to do as a team, so to go from basically starting over our varsity team a few years ago to having almost 30 girls on the team is crazy and I’m glad that I got to play a role in that,” said senior Katie Schaefer.
The seniors were not alone in the work they put in. The numbers for the team began to grow and with that came a very solid group of underclassmen to back the upperclassmen.
“Senior leadership, senior patience, senior experience were all factors of the success, but talented underclassmen have been a huge factor as well,” said Grubb.
The Bears faced defeat by Blue Springs South in the season opener, but that did not set the tone of the season. “The Winnetonka match was the point where I knew this was going to be a good season. Our number one, Tori Gant, lost but the rest of the team was there to support and swept their matches. We almost Winnetonka 9-0 after they beat us 9-0 for the last 3 years,” said Grubb on when the girls started to pick up momentum and fought through, showing everyone that they were there to win.
Even though the team will be graduating a group of seniors that have made a large impact, the momentum will not stop there.
“It feel amazing to know that all of our hard word is paying off and that we have been able to make an impact on the team that won’t cease when we leave. The team will continue to grow and succeed,” said senior Allison Cook.
In order to continue the success into future seasons, there will need to be a lot of work put in both the off-season and the regular season.
Coach Grubb has already been thinking about ways the team can be improving and things they will need to work on next year. “We need to fix our tactics and need to get stronger at the bottom because we are losing a lot of depth. There is just a lot of uncertainty about who is going to jump in and prove themselves, but it will be exciting to watch the younger players develop into experienced ones.”
“It’s not my success,” said head coach Jason Grubb, who has worked for the past five years to build the foundation for all the success that the team is now seeing. Although he refuses to take any of the credit and instead turns it all back to his players.
The hard work of the athletes has lead to the varsity team to have a record of 9-3, to be the undefeated conference champions, a title from the Belton tournament and a title from the William Chrisman Invitational. The junior varsity team has shared in the success with a season record of 10-1.
In Grubb’s second year of coaching, there was a group of four seniors that began the journey to the winning season. They joined the team their freshman year and were forced to step up to the top of varsity the next year, as almost the entire varsity team and a few key jv players graduated.
“It's incredibly rewarding to finally have it all pay off, we've gone through a lot in the last few years that has prepared us all for this season. We've taken a beating for the last three years with all the growing and developing we've had to do as a team, so to go from basically starting over our varsity team a few years ago to having almost 30 girls on the team is crazy and I’m glad that I got to play a role in that,” said senior Katie Schaefer.
The seniors were not alone in the work they put in. The numbers for the team began to grow and with that came a very solid group of underclassmen to back the upperclassmen.
“Senior leadership, senior patience, senior experience were all factors of the success, but talented underclassmen have been a huge factor as well,” said Grubb.
The Bears faced defeat by Blue Springs South in the season opener, but that did not set the tone of the season. “The Winnetonka match was the point where I knew this was going to be a good season. Our number one, Tori Gant, lost but the rest of the team was there to support and swept their matches. We almost Winnetonka 9-0 after they beat us 9-0 for the last 3 years,” said Grubb on when the girls started to pick up momentum and fought through, showing everyone that they were there to win.
Even though the team will be graduating a group of seniors that have made a large impact, the momentum will not stop there.
“It feel amazing to know that all of our hard word is paying off and that we have been able to make an impact on the team that won’t cease when we leave. The team will continue to grow and succeed,” said senior Allison Cook.
In order to continue the success into future seasons, there will need to be a lot of work put in both the off-season and the regular season.
Coach Grubb has already been thinking about ways the team can be improving and things they will need to work on next year. “We need to fix our tactics and need to get stronger at the bottom because we are losing a lot of depth. There is just a lot of uncertainty about who is going to jump in and prove themselves, but it will be exciting to watch the younger players develop into experienced ones.”