Season switch for tennis

Eleven weeks after completing their previous season, the Creston girls tennis team is back in action today (Friday) in a dual meet at Southwest Valley.

Girls tennis had been a spring season since its inception in 1956, but is now a sanctioned fall sport by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. In order to begin state tournament matches in early October before the fall weather turns colder, practices opened on Monday with competitions allowed late this week.

The season has seven weeks of regular season play followed by singles and doubles regionals starting Sept. 17 along with team regional play. State tournaments will be played Oct. 6-7.

Dual participation was approved by the Creston School Board, allowing those athletes who participate in cross country and volleyball to also participate in tennis, if they choose. There are no cross country runners on the tennis team, so coach Kevin Cooper has been scheduling evening or morning workouts, with the intention of not overlapping their early practices with volleyball workouts during camp week.

“There are a lot of different things involved because it’s more than just tennis with volleyball, or tennis with cross country,” Cooper said. “We also have girls participating in the Peppers dance team and in marching band. I think it will work out. Our administration said we have to take our kids, our parents and our team into consideration as we work together. The girls may come from a three-hour volleyball workout and then come here, and that’s a credit to them.”

Cooper said there are positive aspects of the season switch for tennis, such as better weather than early spring, and more court time since they aren’t sharing practice time with the boys tennis team. It also allows tennis athletes who also like an existing spring sport to try that now, and those who have been in other spring sports can now try tennis in the fall.

“Violet Franklin moved to Illinois and is playing there, and she messaged me that she loves having fall tennis there,” Cooper said. “She said, no cold, and no wind.”

Excessive heat, however, could be an issue. Like in football and cross country, school officials are required on hot days to take a measure of conditions called wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT). It’s a composite temperature that considers air temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation to estimate heat stress on the human body.

Like with synthetic turf fields for football and other sports, a tennis court can be from 10 to 20 degrees warmer than the air temperature. In mid-August, Cooper noted that can be a concern as Wednesday’s 5 p.m. practice began with a temperate of 85 degrees, with 63% humidity and a “feels like” temperature of 88 degrees.

“This is really our first hot day,” Cooper said at Wednesday’s practice. “Our first two evenings were perfect. But we know could run into some situations where we can’t play, or we have to wait. We have some meets scheduled in the morning hours before school starts.”

The start of the Iowa State Fair on Thursday creates another issue. The fair ends on Aug. 17.

“The thing that nobody talks about with this is the state fair,” Cooper said. “A third of our season will be over by the end of the state fair. Hollynn (Rieck) will miss our first two meets because of the state fair, but that’s not her fault. Our other girls will just have to move up the lineup, just like the nights when our five volleyball girls are gone. It takes our entire team to make those things work.”

Cooper has a squad of 12 players for this first fall season. He admits it’s a challenge to recruit new players when classes haven’t begun yet, but much of that preparation took place before school was dismissed last spring.

“We started talking to them at the end of last year,” Cooper said. “We kind of knew that as long as dual sports were approved, that our core girls would be there. We had eight girls coming back, and we’ve added three or four to that. We have two freshmen. We had 15 to 20 middle school girls in tennis camp, so they just have to make a decision as they get older.”

The Panther girls were 5-5 in duals last season and as a team advanced to a regional semifinal round in a loss to Hawkeye Ten rival Clarinda. The Cardinals finished a 12-1 season in a regional final loss to Sergeant Bluff-Luton. Creston placed fourth in the Hawkeye Ten Tournament.

Graduated seniors Ava Adamson and Sasha Wurster held the top two singles positions and split up duty in the top two doubles combinations. The rest of last spring’s varsity lineup returns in Hollynn Rieck, Kennedy Strider, Shaylee Coen and Marlee Stalker.

“Ava and Sasha scored a ton of points for us in both singles and doubles, and obviously those are big losses,” Cooper said. “But, by the end of the year Hollynn was right with them, and Kennedy played well in No. 2 singles at Hawkeye Tens. Those two at five and six (Coen and Stalker) will be able to move up one position with no problem. We just have to find some players to fill out the lineup, and help us when we have some people gone.”

The same number of 12 regular season competitions is compressed into a season about a week shorter.

With four courts at Southwestern Community College and two at the Bill Sears Complex, court time for team members will increase in not sharing practices with the boys team. Cooper looks forward to seeing faster improvement in skills.

“When the boys and girls were together and we held matches in practice, you’d have eight kids on the court and 22 standing and watching,” Cooper said. “Now, when we play, we will have eight girls playing, or 10 to 12 if some are in doubles, and that’s our entire team! There are some positives to it, for sure. So far I’m enjoying it.”

Clarinda, Shenandoah and state qualifier Kuemper Catholic are expected to field strong teams in the Hawkeye Ten.

“I think we’ll be pretty solid, and Atlantic will be pretty solid, but I know Clarinda and Shenandoah will have good teams,” Cooper said. “Boone is another very strong team on our schedule. They were very tough last year with a bunch of freshmen and sophomores.”

Sarah Guthrie, middle school teacher, is the new assistant coach.

“Sarah played at Charles City and at Simpson College,” Cooper said. “It’s great to have her.”

Creston’s first schedule home meet is 10 a.m. Aug. 14 vs. Chariton.

Roster

Seniors — Hollynn Rieck, Lila Berning, Lilly James, Savannah Jaques.

Juniors — Kennedy Strider.

Sophomores — Brooke Huck, Christina Strand, Janessa Pokorny, Kenna Castelan, Lexi Slick, Marlee Stalker, Shaylee Coen.

Freshmen — Ali Gordy, Camille Brown.