The JV tennis team has had a very up and down season. They started off with a couple very tough matches and tournaments which caught the team off guard. Once the school year began and the team had more organized practices, as they started to learn tactics and strategies to make their team better. The team had many goals throughout the season, with the main goal pushing the athletes to have fun. Mitch Timyan is a first year coach, who also played on the FHC tennis team four years ago. He took over the JV tennis team with co-coach and former player Humzah Azeem.

“Playing with Humzah on JV and varsity really helped with teaching the kids strategies that I learned playing,” Mitch said. “It helped show the kids that we really know what is going on and what they should do in order to win. We were able to teach them the right things to do to get better.”

Coach Timyan played 4 doubles his senior year with Humzah and they happened to win a state championship together. The coaches main goal throughout the season was to teach the kids new strategies and tactics but also to remind them that it is JV tennis and that they should have fun. Timyan also talked about their goal as coaches for the season.

“We tried to emphasize that it is JV tennis and it is not super serious,” Mitch said. “We tried to make it fun for them and we focused more on getting better and improving as a team and as players. We tried to shy away from focusing specifically on winning.”

The team had a lot of freshmen and sophomores this year. Most players throughout the season talked about how having them as coaches helped because of their youth and ability to relate to the players. Alex Lowell one of the top players on the team had a high praise for the young coaching staff.

“They not only played for FHC but they are very close to us in age,” Alex said. “They understood more of what we are going through as students and as athletes. Our team could relate to what they were talking about a lot more because of their young age.”

The team had some successes including big matches against East Kentwood and Northpointe Christian. The team tended to struggle in a tournament setting, but it was good experience for the new players to see tournament style play.

“Humzah and I tried hard at focusing on preparing the kids for next years tryouts and letting them know what they should work on in the offseason,” Mitch said. “We tried to show them how to prepare and get better for the following season.”

Alex and the other players gave a lot of credit to their growth to the teaching of Humzah and Mitch this season.

“Humzah and Mitch did a good job with keeping the team serious and improving while also having fun as a team and relaxing,” Alex said. “They also taught us some valuable tactics to improve our game like crashing the net and finishing points which really helped with doubles.”

The JV team improved throughout the year while moving kids around and having fun. The team’s results proved that as the season went on they got better and won more matches. They also continued to switch the lineup around from time to time to see who played better together and to get more experience for the players.

“When we were coaching we didn’t have any specific lineup,” Mitch said. “We wanted kids to play at every level and give them the chance to show their abilities and we wanted to see which players played well together.”

The young team’s players will look to have a strong showing this winter and work throughout the season to improve. Their overall record didn’t show the growth these players had throughout an outstanding finish to the season.