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Young 'Hawks Hope Improvement is Key to Success
The Ripon women's tennis team is full of both good and bad news as they enter the 2006 season. The bad news is that they're coming off a season that saw them win only one game. The good news, however, is that there is plenty of room for improvement and there are several fresh faces that will help the Red Hawks turn the program in a positive direction.
"Part of becoming successful is just getting over the hump," said head coach John Dinegan. "Two or three times last year, it came down to us having to win a final match, which we didn't do. It
wasn't necessarily that we couldn't do it, but rather that we really
felt the pressure and didn't come through."
Dinegan, in his second year as head coach, believes that last season may have been a blessing in disguise.
"Having been through everything last season will only make us stronger in the future," Dinegan said. "With
the new blood coming in and the veterans that are returning, hopefully
we can take that next step, which will be moving up in the conference
standings."
The Red Hawks still are a fairly young team, with just
three seniors, one of whom (Mara Evans) will be competing on
the collegiate tennis court for the first time. The seniors will
be joined by two juniors, three sophomores and six freshmen who
hope to help move Ripon in the right direction. That direction
can only be improved by the hard work and dedication the girls
put in.
"Improvement has to do with how much we've worked at it over the summer," Dinegan said. "We need to try to improve every day in practice and see what happens."
Each of Ripon's six singles players are returning, with the exception of their fifth-seeded player. Senior Jamie Lichon once again will look to anchor the team as the number one singles player.
"Jamie's as good a number one as there is in the conference, but it's going to be how much we've improved in the spots after that is going to be the big thing," said
Dinegan.
Kara Wagner also returns for her junior season, a year after she held down the number two spot.
"Kara does her best day in and day out and is a really consistent player," Dinegan said. "Last
season, she had to move up to number two and she handled that really
well."
Arielle Denis is the team's returning number three player. After getting plenty of experience last season as a freshman, Denis hopes to continue her improvement this year.
"Arielle came in as a first-year player and was forced to play at number three," said Dinegan. "I
think it was an eye-opening experience for her, and she improved
a great deal throughout the season."
Lisa Verwys played as the team's number four singles player last season and should look to compete for a spot in the middle once again.
"Lisa uses the entire court and can really frustrate opponents with her endurance and athleticism," Dinegan
said.
The sixth and final spot may be up for grabs, with the frontrunner for the spot being Kate Dricken, who held that spot last year.
"Kate is very good at getting her opponents to move around and also does well at keeping the ball in play," Dinegan
said.
All in all, this season should shape up to be an interesting one, to say the least. With nearly half of the team in their first year playing for Ripon, there's going to be some uncertainties. There also were some lessons learned by the returnees throughout last year's matches that could help them on the court this season.
"At times last year, we just beat ourselves by not keeping the ball in play and trying to make shots that we weren't able to execute," Dinegan said. "The biggest thing we need to do to be successful this year is to not beat ourselves."
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