Lebanon
The Raider boys, led by a experienced group of returning veterans, is coming off their first NHIAA Division II championship in school history, an undefeated (17-0) campaign. The team lost only one senior, Nick Haidari, and No. 1 singles ace Jacob Peress returns to lead the stacked Raiders, with Terran Campbell and Noah Didehbani providing strong secondary leadership.
The girls team, on the other hand, is in the process of starting over. Only Fatima Khan came out for tennis last season, leaving the sophomore stranded with the boys and Lebanon’s girls squad on hiatus. With numbers up this spring, however, Lebanon has reinstated the team in NHIAA Division III with seven freshmen, a sophomore and three juniors joining Khan this year. But many of the newcomers have little experience on the court. Some are playing organized tennis for the first time.
The contrast represents the best of both worlds for third-year head coach Mike Haxton and co-coach Rob Johnstone: Working with the established favorites and a rebuilding project at the same time presents a challenge that works both sides of a coach’s mind. One day, Haxton hopes, one program may help lift the other. Until then, the challenge is to convince some of the incoming female athletes to commit to tennis long-term.
“Our goal for the girls is to see if we can win two or three matches,” Haxton said during a practice at Our Court tennis club in White River Junction on Tuesday night. “If we can win more, that’ll be a bonus. Our focus is on next year, with a year under their belts.”
Haxton, the athletic director at Lebanon Middle School, stirred up enough interest at the eighth-grade level last year to know he would have the numbers to reinstate the girls team this spring. The question then became who would be its coach.
Enter Lebanon boys soccer varsity coach Johnstone, whose son, Owen, is on the boys tennis team as well. Haxton and Johnstone will share coaching duties for the girls team, splitting practices and matches.
“I’ve never coached it before,” Johnstone said. “I’ve played. I used to love to play it in high school and in college, but until Owen started I hadn’t played (tennis) in years. … Mostly it’s about being with the kids.
“I told them at our (preseason) meeting, ‘It doesn’t matter at all where we are now, but if you play tennis for two hours every day for two months, the progress is going to be unbelievable,’ ” Johnstone added. “It’s a challenge, but they’re laughing and having a good time. It’s cool.”
Khan’s role has changed since her freshman season. That will stay true this spring, as the Raider junior adjusts to D-III competition. She’ll hold down the No. 1 slot in Haxton’s lineup and a leadership position in which she now finds herself, surrounded by inexperience.
“This is something new for me. I’ve never been in a leadership role like this,” Khan said during the start of Wednesday’s boys match against Bishop Brady at the Carter Community Building Associaton. “I’m not very vocal, I’m more by example. I don’t really speak out that much, but I try to when I see someone doing something wrong. I try to help them. I wouldn’t say I’m that aggressive kind of leader.
“It was definitely intimidating at first (being on the boys team),” she added. “We didn’t have a lot of girls my freshman year, either; we only had four girls on the team. So I kind of knew, unless someone joined, it would only be me. … I thought, honestly, I’d be playing with the guys again. But surprisingly, we got 12 girls from somewhere.”
Both Haxton and Johnstone said their biggest goal is to introduce tennis to their incoming athletes, hoping that some will pick it up quickly enough to stay committed to the team through high school. While the boys played their Wednesday match, Haxton spent some time with girls going over basic rules, the scoring system and the nomenclature used during a game.
“It’s really fun, I can get into it really easily,” said Esperanza Daly, a freshman who picked up tennis for the first time this spring. “It’s just really awesome, and I think it allows you to improve as a group when you’re playing doubles, but also improve individually when you’re playing singles. I really like that.”
Lebanon’s boys team might be the best example to follow, given its experience. Peress, the Raiders’ senior captain, said pressure and expectations are higher than ever, not only to succeed this season but also to keep Lebanon tennis competitive once his class graduates. Multi-sport athletes like Graham Chickering (soccer, basketball), Peter Elder (hockey), and Leah Mayes (basketball) have all signed up for tennis this spring, something Peress hopes can be a template for the future.
“I always enjoy recruiting people and trying to get people to come out for the tennis team,” Peress said. “A couple of years ago, we had eight people, last year we had 11 and now we have 14 or 15. It’s grown in number every year. … I hope it’s created a culture where athletes know they can play tennis, especially if they don’t have a spring sport.
“This year was a huge leap forward for the girls program,” he added. “They’ve recruited a few good athletes. … I think that’s huge, getting people that are young and athletic to come out for the tennis team. It’s really good that the girls have that now.”
Khan said more still can be done to help grow tennis at the younger levels. But having a program back is a good start.
“I think the major issue is a lot of sports you can play in middle school, but there really isn’t any tennis program in elementary school or middle school,” Khan said. “Growing up, I would play separately. … People don’t really get introduced to it. I’d love to see, in the middle school, a tennis program to attract people so that, by the time they’re in high school, they have experience and we can hopefully do better and have a stronger team.”
“It’s like anything else,” Haxton said. “If you keep the program going, kids will want to do it. … I’m trying to promote it as much as I can.”
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.