‘Cat boys tennis looks solid
Sports Reporter
PRESQUE ISLE – The Presque Isle boys tennis team had its most successful season ever in 2009, making it all the way to the Eastern Maine championship before losing to Ellsworth.
The Wildcats will open the season against those same Eagles at home Saturday at noon, and first-year coach Sam Picard is hoping the team has another solid season in store.
“I’m expecting a similar performance out of this team as they had last year,” said the 20-year-old Picard. “I could see us getting deep into the Maine Principals Association tournament, and am looking for a 9-3 record or better for the regular season.”
Picard, who graduated from PIHS in 2008, has coached in the Presque Isle Recreation and Parks Department summer tennis program the past two years and last spring coached one of the Presque Isle Middle School tennis teams. He takes over for Tim Dolley, who moved from the area last summer.
Presque Isle has some key players to replace from last year’s team that was 14-2 overall. Alex Carter, who played No. 1 singles and made it to the state singles tournament all four years, graduated as did Ben Picard, the coach’s younger brother who played second singles last season.
Moving up from third singles to first is junior Caleb Mathers, who himself made it to the state singles tourney as a freshman.
Sophomore Connor Shaw has shown a major improvement in stepping up from second doubles last year to second singles this year.
Chris Cawley is one of just two seniors on the squad and serves as the team’s co-captain. He will play No. 3 singles after being on the first doubles team last year. The other senior and captain, Kyle Gilson, joins junior Emerson Mendieta-Castro as the current No. 1 doubles team, while junior Mike Picard, another of the coach’s brothers, will for the second consecutive year be in second doubles. His partner is sophomore Osman Mendieta-Castro.
“I feel our doubles teams are above average, and I’m looking to them to win most of their matches to keep us in the winning column,” said coach Picard.
He said the nice weather early on this spring got his team out on the courts by the third scheduled practice. “It usually takes two to three weeks for that to happen, so we are getting in as much hitting as possible, and that will definitely help with our earlier matches,” he added.
Coach Picard likes where the PI boys tennis program is headed.
“I have noticed a slow increase in the interest of the program over the past few years, and it has brought on several competitive athletes who probably wouldn’t have taken the sport seriously at first,” he said.
This year’s team has 15 members, and increase of five from last year. Others on the squad are senior Nnazor Nnazowa, juniors Andrew Legassie, Brock Cassidy and Brandan Jeter and freshmen Drew Barrett, Hayden Dow and Logan Dumais. Eric Freeman is the team’s manager.
