The Aplington-Parkersburg girls tennis team is beginning its final week of preseason practices in anticipation of the season opener on Thursday, April 4.
They’ll be led by one of the program’s all-time great players. Junior Adria Neymeyer will be the #1 singles player after placing sixth at state singles last year. It was the highest-ever state tournament placing by an AP girls singles player. First-year Head Coach Haley Schneiderman anticipates a strong season by Neymeyer and junior Peyton Klooster at #2 singles.
“I’m sure Adria will pull out a lot of wins this season,” Schneiderman says. “My goal with her would be getting her to come to the net more and build her confidence there as she’s playing and just she’ll just be a big asset on our team this year for sure, especially being it’s so young. It’ll be good having Peyton and Adria up front there, who have had some experience in the past.”
Last year, Neymeyer went 13-2 in the regular season and Klooster went 8-3.
Schneiderman says sophomores Megan Bruns and Holly Haugstad will fill the #3 and #4 singles slots, but the rest of the lineup will be filled by freshmen who are new to the sport.
“Looking at Megan Bruns and and Holly Haugstad, who played some varsity last year too, a more like fourth, fifth, sixth seed kind of at the lower level. So they’ll be pushing up to more like three and four this year. So we’re trying to get them going, getting their skills ready, cause they’re going to be facing some tougher competition than they experienced last year. And then we kind of have two open spots right now we’re trying to figure out, getting those freshmen going who have never played before. We’ve got a lot of people that haven’t played before. So it’s been kind of fun working with them, getting them introduced to the sport. We’re kind of trying to push along some of those that are looking kind of ready because we got two open spots on that varsity team that we need filled.”
The Falcons will play at South Hardin in next week’s season opener.
Interview with Schneiderman:
