Alan Gardner
Junior Josh Fink awaits the serve from Chanhassen's boys tennis team Apr. 11. Park boys swung into the season with a tough loss against the Storm.
On a rainy day in Chanhassen, Park took on the Storm in a tennis meet to begin the season’s competitions. Chanhassen sports have been doing well all year, with their football team winning the state championship and their hockey team making it to that point as well. Park fared well against Chanhassen, but fell short of the victory, losing 5-2.
Coach Greg Holmbeck said the team has made big improvements. He said he sees Chanhassen as a challenge, and thinks his team rose to the occasion.
“Chan’s a pretty hard team so I think we fought them well,” Holmbeck said. “We had a better score than last year, so I would probably call that a win.”
According to senior Brady Erlandson, this was a challenging match, and he could have been better at not letting the little things get in the way of his positive mindset.
“At least for me, one thing that could have gone better was just trying not to let the little things get to me, (like) missing a shot or hitting a bit too hard,” Erlandson said.
According to junior Crew Lund, they prepared to compete against a very tough Chanhassen program. He said they focused on technique and positioning training to put them in a better position to win.
“We have been working on strength training, we have been working on technique, and we’ve worked on strategy and positioning,” Lund said.
Erlandson said he believes the team, and himself, can continue to improve going forward. He said he wants to be more consistent with his shots and have fun.
“For me, I’d say just trying to be as consistent with my shots as possible, and as a team I’d say just keep playing and having fun while doing it,” Erlandson said.
Lund said the team has overcome some challenges during this season, as they were just recently able to get outdoors.
“We’re finally able to get outside and get a lot of balls hit. We were not able to get outside until the end of the first week,” Lund said.
Holmbeck said he saw Isaac Joseph’s performance as a good one, and gave credit to him for winning his match.
“I would like to shout out Isaac Joseph,” Holmeck said. “He got a good win and came back from losing the first set, and went on to win the tiebreaker.”
The next match will be at 4:00 p.m. April 16 at Lake Hiawatha Park against Roosevelt.