Season Preview 2016

Welcome to the 2016 tennis season! We're very excited to get started with Bruin tennis for the year, and glad to have so many great guys out for the season.

What's New This Season?
Not much really. As far as our season schedule goes, we are no longer playing Laville and the Merrillville Invitational is at Portage High School this year. But really, everything else is the same.

As far as players, we have a bunch of new players coming back this season. Joel Yoder is back from his semester in Paraguay, Lucas Brownsberger-Keyes returns from a year at a different school, and Angel Torres joins us as a sophomore. Plus, we've got 4 new freshman joining the team!

Also new this year are our jerseys, which will look like this:

Nice huh?

What to expect this season?
During our tennis camp, our team came up with a list of things that we want to be true about our team. Throughout the season, we want to be men of character who display:

1. Honesty
2. Encouragement
3. Focused Intensity
4. Spirit
5. Accountability

Those are the pillars that the team is going to be built on this season. And so much of what you will see and hear in practice will be geared toward practicing these characteristics and reminding each other that we need to pursue them. We've already had a great practice session with focused intensity, we've built many of our drills around accountability, and we've been able to share our honest desires for the season with each other at team camp. I expect this will continue.

Also, you can expect to hear about Jesus. This year's theme is based around the Lord's prayer. I'm calling it "Big Words," but as I explained at tennis camp, it's more like "meaningful words." We're going to look at how Jesus taught his disciples to pray and the powerful, meaningful, big words that are contained within that prayer and the big concepts they point to.

You can also expect a lot of good tennis. Our team returns 6 of the 8 players who played varsity matches last year, and so we have a lot of experience. We also return all of our top JV players. So this will be a year with a lot of depth. That always makes it a fantastic year for getting better. We should have success as a team in general. The JV should do well and win plenty of matches, and so should the varsity. Of course our "focused intensity" and "accountability" and all the rest will determine how far that success extends.

What should I pray for?
Well, you should pray honestly and let God know your desires for this season. Ask for God's desires to be made known to you too. And pray for "corporate solidarity." One of our first big concepts. Pray that you, your teammates, and God will remove obstacles that prevent us from coming together as one. That's a good place to start.

Love you guys and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year!