The season is about to begin at for the boys tennis team at Malden High School and they have high hopes for the season. The team is coming from a successful season after having won the Greater Boston League last year. They beat every team they played and the boys has great hopes that they will do it again and achieve the title once more
When asked about their hopes for the season, coach and MHS gym and health teacher Julie Briggs says that she is very confident about the fact that her team will become GBL champions once again. She is confident because “[their] record so far has been great”.
When asked about the boys Briggs says that they are “very supportive of each other and have a great relationship.” Briggs adds that her seniors are “incredibly smart and kind.” This year, the senior members are Tri Pham, William Yang, Ryan Wong, Edward Gu, and Rory Milan. The captains for the season have not been chosen yet because Briggs wants them to work for the position.
As to the relationships in the team, Wong says that “most of [them] are close friends” and that “three of [the team members] even have the same job”. He expects to get the GBL title again, but he does add that he hopes to do better at states. For the last two years that they have been to states they have been eliminated during their first game so he hopes that this year they will be able to make it past the first round.
Briggs has been coaching the team on and off for 12 years. She has been doing tennis since she was in high school and during that time she even had a New England Ranking. The boys enjoy having her as a coach. Pham says that “she is like [his] second mother.” He says that she “loves to joke around but is serious and tough when it is needed”.
Both Wong and Pham mentioned that this will be a tough season due to the teams that they are up against but Pham says that he “still has high hopes for all of [them] and really thinks that they can do well in the end”.
Briggs usually only allows 15 people to make it onto the team but this year she made an exception and accepted 16.
Tryouts were held last week from Wednesday through Friday. Tuesday was a day for practice and many students attended and paired off to play a game. The real tryouts consisted of matches between two people until one of them hit a certain amount of points.
The team will practice everyday after school as long as they do not have a game. Hopefully this will be great season to add to the many that the boys tennis team has had at MHS.
