Perspective on the 2018 Season #2

In the last "Perspective" post, I looked at the team strength of our schedule. Today, we will take a different look at the season. Today, we'll look at how our team performed by position.

HOW WELL DID WE DO AT EACH POSITION?
2018 VARSITY

Position	Record
#1S	9-14
#2S	11-12
#3S	12-11
#1D	11-12
#2D	12-11

So, we were pretty much the same right across the board. Our strongest positions were #3S and #2D. That's awesome. Those have to be strong in order to have a good team. I've often said that teams that win #3S and #2D tend to win the Sectionals. In fact, in 2008 I did a study of the state's Sectionals, and 60 of the 64 Sectional champions won #3S and #2D. In our own Sectional championship seasons, #3S and #2D have had our best records.

Our weakest position, record wise, was #1S. But I've got Liam's back... I've got a post lined up outlining the gauntlet that he had to play at #1S. Suffice it to say, he had to play a talented row of All-District, All-Conference and All-State players.

But at four of our positions, we basically finished with a .500 record. As a team, we finished at 9-11, basically a .500 team.

As a team, our road to getting better is pretty clear: We need to have each position get better. In fact, let's compare to previous seasons to the path to an even better record.

For comparisons sake
2018 VARSITY

Position	Record
#1S	9-14
#2S	11-12
#3S	12-11
#1D	11-12
#2D	12-11

2017 VARSITY

Position	Record
#1S	6-17
#2S	9-14
#3S	7-16
#1D	18-7
#2D	12-11

So, the simple comparison to last year's team is that we improved immensely in every position except for #1D. Although, we were pretty outstanding at #1D last year. What's interesting is that we got better at almost every position while only having 3 varsity players return... and they weren't the ones who had better records. In other words, it was our first year varsity players who posted the best records this year - Philip Krabill, Caleb Shenk, Will Nisley and Tyson Miller. That bodes well heading into next year, because 3 of those 4 return.

Where we've really got to make a jump to get back to an elite status as a tennis program is the win percentage of each position. This year, we were all right around .500. But if we compare that to the last 10 years average...

LAST 10 YEARS AVERAGE

Position	Record
#1S	16-8
#2S	16-8
#3S	15-9
#1D	16-9
#2D	16-8

We can see that over the past 10 years, we've had some stellar tennis players. This year, our average record was like 11-12 while over the past 10 years we've had average records of 16-8! I mean, each position has been impressive, and each position has had stars and down years.

How did these records get so good? What is the difference between the past 10 years and the last two? And how do we get back there again? Well, in each of the last 10 years, from 2007-2017, we had a majority of the varsity taking lessons during the off-season, like 3-4 guys each year. Then, the extra positions of the varsity have been filled in by guys who are athletic and involved in multiple sports. 

Over the past two years, since the Racket Club inconveniently turned into soccer fields and baseball cages, we haven't had as many guys pursuing lessons and such. We've played well over the summer, which has made us a middle of the road team. Getting back to the elite level means spending some extra focus on tennis, either during the offseason or during the summer. 

I'm pretty confident about the guys we have moving up from the JV though. We've got a good crop of young players ready to move in and make their own marks. Let's look at how the JV positions did on the season below.

HOW ABOUT THE JV?
2018 JUNIOR VARSITY TOP 5 POSITIONS

Position	Record
#1SJV	8-6
#2SJV	4-9
#3SJV	4-9
#1DJV	8-7
#2DJV	4-9

So, we can see that our top positions actually posted winning records. That's impressive, and it shows that we are ready to move up and take advantage of the openings on varsity next year. The #2SJV, #3SJV, and #2DJV positions were often played by freshmen this year, giving them good experience and readying them for the leap that it will take to move forward.

And how does this compare to previous JV years? Are we making any progress?

2017 JV TOP 5 POSITIONS

Position	Record
#1SJV	7-11
#2SJV	6-12
#3SJV	3-13
#1DJV	7-10
#2DJV	4-9

You can see that we made significant progress from last year. Each position except for #2SJV had a better record this year than last year. That's also promising, because of the players who achieved these records last year, 3 then moved up and competed well for the varsity (Will, Tyson, and Philip). So in general, things are moving in the right direction :-)

2018 JV OTHER POSITIONS

Position	Record
#4SJV	1-4
#5SJV	0-2
#3DJV	2-6
#4DJV	2-4
#5DJV	0-2

Our lower JV positions didn't fare as well. We actually picked up some wins early in the season, and lost some really close match in these spots late in the season. We showed so much improvement, and we'll just have to play a lot of tennis for these records to improve.

SUMMING IT UP

We made great progress this year, but we want to push up into being a team that consistently wins. In order to do that, each individual position is going to have to win a few more matches on the season. It's what we talked about all year, we are going to be the confident ones who take the shot to win the point, set or match - instead of being tentative and fearful in the big moments. 

As we play more tennis, get used to taking the big shots, and find success... that will translate to more wins. But I was so glad to see us improve each position from last year, and also to watch us improve through the season. How did we improve through the season? Let's look at that in the next post!