The 2017 season was a tough one for the Londonderry High School girls’ tennis team last spring. But there are reasons for coach Betty Mak and her charges to think that this season will show improvement on a 2-12 finish for the local racketeers.
The current squad didn’t feature a single senior as it was set to get its 2018 campaign started this past Tuesday, April 3, with a short road trip to Bedford to take on the Bedford High Lady Bulldogs. That Bedford bunch won Division I championships in both 2015 and 2016 but missed out on doing so last spring.
Coach Mak’s 2018 LHS mob is jammed with juniors, boasting no less than seven on its nine-player ladder.
That crew is led by number one player Amelia Brenner, and number two player Rachel Cook is also an 11th grader. Moving on down the ladder, number three player Rachel Court is a sophomore, but players four through seven are all juniors. That bunch includes Emily Hatem, Sydney Martin, Melanie Methot, and Abigail Palmer.
Number eight athlete Alyssa Treanor is a sophomore, and number nine racketeer Amanda Wells is another junior.
Of course, players further down on the ladder will aim to move up through challenges during the season.
Looking at other segments of Division I, the Derryfield School crew from Manchester steps into the new campaign as the defending champion, having disposed of the Hanover High Lady Marauders in the title battle late last spring.
The brightest days of the Londonderry High girls’ tennis program came in 2008 and 2011, when the Lady Lancers reached the state title matches. The locals lost to Concord in 2008 and then Bishop Guertin of Nashua in 2011. But the 2018 edition of the LHS girls’ squad isn’t thinking in terms of making it to the finals just yet. The Londonderry squad will go one match at a time in trying to improve upon its 2-12 record of a year ago.
In that effort, the Lady Lancers were to start with the road match in Bedford this past Tuesday, after press time.