As the snow starts to melt off the courts, boys tennis is preparing for their upcoming 2025 season. This year, the team has lots of goals. The team wants to do well in conference this year and hopefully have a few players qualify for state.
Varsity Coach and Language Teacher Andrew Suarez hopes for a successful season and has lots of plans for this year’s team. While they did lose a few seniors from the 2024 season, this is not a worry for Suarez, and he has high hopes for this year’s roster.
“The main goal is just to improve, wherever the team is at is just to get better every day as the weeks go by and to have fun doing it. We want to qualify somebody for state and win our conference, but those things just come if we are improving. Every year is different depending on how much the kids have improved from last season, but we always want to improve on team work and strategy which is going to make us stronger,” Suarez said.
While the weather is a concern for Suarez with the snow that has been filling the tennis courts, making it hard to put the nets up, he isn’t letting that get in the way of his excitement.
“I really enjoy coaching, and we have a great coaching staff. We always have fun watching the teams work together. This year, we have a great group of kids, and I look forward to being with them because we’re going to be pretty strong this year,” Suarez said.
Junior Miguel Delara has been on varsity since freshman year, and he knows what he needs to do to have a successful season, as well as what he wants his team to improve on. Delara played singles last year on the team and wants to continue to improve for the upcoming matches.
“For this season, I really want to improve and work on my net game as my individual goal. With new guys coming in, I think, as a whole, it’s in our best interest to work on the chemistry between us. Other than that, none of us really need to change anything but rather just tweak a few things in our game. I’m kind of anxious about sectionals, but I’m trying to also be optimistic, and hopefully I’m able to qualify for state,” Delara said.
With his final year at West, senior Mateo Velasco wants to have a successful last season. Although he has had some time off, he is ready to come back and work hard.
“I’m excited to be back with the team again and seeing how the returning players have been, but also welcoming the new varsity players. I really hope to beat Niles North this year because we have been on a hot streak against them. I want us to get top three in conference, and I hope we can replicate what we did last year. I haven’t been playing as much as I want to be because of being busy, so I’m scared that maybe my skills aren’t where they were last year. I’m not the same player, which is a good and bad thing,” Velasco said.
Tryouts are next week, starting on Monday, March 3, on the tennis courts.
