CARBONDALE (WSIL) -- On Monday, the Carbondale girls tennis team knocked off Salem 8-1 and with the victory, the Terriers improved to 7-1.
"Started off a little slow in the beginning of the year with giving up a couple of matches at Salem and since then our practices have become more intense, our focus has become better and our hustle is what’s really making us win matches right now," Carbondale Head Tennis Coach Mike Butler said.
"We’re having a good time but all of us know once we are on the courts and we start warming up that it is time to get serious and in practice we all take practice pretty seriously and at the same time we like to have fun because that is what our coach instills in us," Carbondale senior Shreya Patel said.
"I usually stay calm and try to stay focused and block everything out and on the bus, on the way up I’ll listen to some music like the Rocky theme song sometimes," Carbondale freshman Skylar Moore said. "I just like to listen to music to get me pumped up and in the zone I guess."
"I go out there and think of winning and having fun," Carbondale junior Longmei Ge said. "I think not getting down on myself helps a lot because when matches are close or you’re losing or you start off playing poorly, it’s really easy to stress yourself out and make yourself really upset and you dig yourself into this mental hole that is really hard to get out of so the biggest thing is to focus on what you enjoy about the sport while you are playing it and and that keeps you from getting out of that hole."
Carbondale has a winning tradition with their tennis programs so when Terrier student athletes have stepped on to the court over the years, they’ve immediately bought into the championship state of mind.
"Just the overall drive of the tennis program," Butler said. "I think everybody sees the sectional banners. 11 of them for boys tennis, 3 of them for girls tennis. The conference championships, ten of them we’ve hung over the last twenty years. I just think they enjoy wanting to be a part of that and continue to push themselves forward to keep the winning tradition alive."
This year’s squad has a nice blend of young and veteran athletes. Experienced and inexperienced. At 7-1 it’s a combination that is working.
“When a freshman comes in and takes over at number one and basically goes out and has basically lost one mark, one loss to Taylor Moore from Benton in singles. She basically set the tone at guess what, the upperclassmen are looking up at a freshman and so I have to raise my game up."
"I’ve had a lot of fun with it," Moore said. "I don’t think it is too overwhelming. It’s a lot, you have to work for it, it doesn’t come easy."
"I’m also really pleased with the senior leadership of my captain and I can’t say enough about Shreya Patel, she’s the lone senior playing in the top ten," Butler said. "She keeps everybody focused and what it needs to be and off the court she keeps everybody light and happy."
"My sophomore year, we had five really strong seniors and once they graduated I think like I started to realize it was going to be me and some of the juniors that are really going to have to step up and become really inviting to the freshmen and sophomores that are joining this team because they have a lot of talent but being a team and bonding together is also a really important part of the team and cheering on even the JV matches whenever they are going on, no matter how tired we are after the varsity ones. Team bonding is one of the most important parts as well as talent," Patel said.
"I also want to put a shoutout to Longmei Ge, this is a girl basically two years ago was picking up a racket and now basically plays anywhere between two and four for us and is undefeated in singles on the year and only one blemish loss in doubles and she basically personifies the work ethic," Butler said. "Everybody sees her day in day out, ten minutes before practice, 30 minutes after practice serving, just wanting to be better."
"I think I'm just so happy we are having a season because we were so worried we wouldn't have one and the fact that we are out here gives extra motivation to do as well as you can and it adds so much more fun and excitement to the season," Ge said.
