David Cook
Sports Scene
A year after making the state finals in one of the most memorable seasons in Ionia boys tennis history, the Bulldogs began the task of rebuilding the program so it can have another memorable season down the road.
The team was guided by new coach Jack Manciu this season, and despite a lack of numbers, the team was competitive from beginning to end and showed promise for the future.
“It’s been a wonderful season,” Manciu said. “The kids have learned a lot of things about tennis. They’ve improved their games from the beginning of the season until now. All the teams we’ve played, we’ve been right in the ball game with them. The big thing for us is to just stay patient. Stay with the player and wait for the other guy to make a mistake, and if they can do that I think they will find themselves with a better opportunity stay in the match and possibly win.”
That recipe for success proved to be effective last year. This year, however, the team lost a number of players to graduation, and the lack of a feeder program has proved tough, with low numbers on the varsity.
“We did lose a lot of players,” Manciu said. “We lost six seniors. We do not have a feeder program from the elementary or the middle school. As far as the rebuilding process, that is something that has to be improved. When we started out the year, we only had 11 players. We didn‘t have enough for a whole varsity team. I‘ve been encouraging some of our athletes who have given up on football and basketball to give tennis a shot, because sports like basketball and baseball lend themselves well to this sport. The hand-eye coordination, movement right to left. We really need to work on getting more freshmen out. We only had two freshmen out this year.”
Heading up the singles lineup for the Bulldogs this season was senior Joe Voet. Junior Cody Nutt was at No. 2 singles and showed plenty of promise this season, as did junior Matt Josselyn at No. 4 singles. Junior Patrick Josselyn and Josh Salis have also been contributors in the singles lineup.
In doubles play, the Bulldogs were paced by the No. 1 doubles team of seniors Matt Shanski and Chase Arrell.
“We’re going to be hunting for some kids to come out for tennis next year,” Manciu said. “Freshmen and sophomores who have some skills who maybe have given up on couple of other sports, and maybe we can turn them into good tennis players.”