Though the academics are quite competitive at Edgemont, the sports teams all too often are not. One team, however, has managed to find consistent “success” year after year. That team of course is the Boys Varsity Tennis Team, who have won their league for the seventh consecutive year. At this point though, the real question is whether this is an actual achievement, or just an expectation. The league banner in the gym has almost every year on it, and at this point makes losing the league more notable than winning it. Rumors are spreading that there will be a new banner that keeps track of the years they do not win the league.
One could attribute the tennis team’s continued dominance to the intense, “mandatory” practices that are held every day after school. These practices consist of intense drills such as mini-tennis (also known as ping pong) and the occasional practice tiebreak. The sheer amount of time the players spend hitting tennis balls is what separates Edgemont players from the rest. On a tough day, players could be at practice from 3:45 to 5:15!
Another factor that contributes to their success is the unbreakable bonds between the players. The players had one team dinner throughout the 2 and a half month season with attendance enforced by senior Ethan Mauskopf. We took the bus as a team 0 times for away matches.
If you had to ask any player on the team why they won their match, he would immediately start thanking his supporters. According to junior Krishen (Cactus) Kakar, “I only won today because of everyone cheering me on. My mom came for half of the match and half the team showed up too (it was a home match).” The popularity of the team brings the community together, as the official Edgemont Boys Varsity Tennis Instagram boasts an impressive 52 followers. Surveys conducted show that only 0.03% of the Edgemont community is aware that the team is playing in the sectional final.
In fact, nobody is really sure who is on the team, since only 12 out of the 22 kids on the team show up to the matches. The team group chat has had several members added in the last week, who went through the whole season without knowing about practice times or away matches. There are also several kids who have been seen sporadically throughout the season, who may or may not be officially on the team. Nobody knows which chat really has this year’s full lineup.
One way that the team continues its success over the years is how the upperclassmen prepare the younger players to “carry on the legacy.” Excluding eighth grade phenom Elijah Johnson, the majority of the younger players’ activity came from bringing up the water from the gym to the tennis courts for practice everyday. Talking about his intense job, freshman Sam Meyer says “bringing up the water was nothing short of a grueling measure. To balance my bookbag and tennis bag on my back, along with taking up the water was harder than most of our matches. Taking the water up was an honor, though, and I’m excited to pass on the legacy to the next batch of freshmen on the team.” The freshmen on the team get the utmost respect from the rest of the team, especially from the seniors.
The team’s wide range of students, spanning five grades and many different shapes and sizes, compose Edgemont’s most successful and least threatening team. Although many people do not even know the team exists, their “ongoing dominance” is hard to ignore (just don’t look at the banner). With such a good senior class graduating, next year might finally be the year that the winning streak is broken, and the league is lost.