2006 Season Preview
By Nate JerveyAlma College Sport Marketing
The Alma men’s tennis team is looking to start a quick rebuilding process under first year head coach, Chris Sandro. This year’s team is lacking in experience, but has some major potential. Seven of the teams nine players are freshmen with the strongest of them, Ahmet Demir, expected to play number one singles. Ahmet comes to the Scots from Turkey and brings with him a career resume that should instantly add credibility to the Scot roster.
Three other freshmen - Dan Fraser, Josh Sanders, and Chris Noel - are all expected to battle for both singles and doubles roster spots. While the team’s two lone seniors, Ryan Kelley and two-year captain Tristan Wilson will help to complete what should be a very competitive line-up.
Rounding out the line up for the Scots are freshmen Brett Seymoure, James Kruse, and Reese Manikowski. All three have solid all-around games and should offer the Scots some depth in their doubles line up.
“We do not have a whole lot of experience this year, but we have a lot of potential and excellent senior leadership,” commented Sandro. “Our success this year will depend on how quickly our young guys adapt to college level tennis and our ability to pull out the tight matches.”
Alma is coming off a 3-14 season, and has not won an MIAA title in the school’s history and hopes to take a step in the right direction this year.
“The MIAA is a tough tennis conference, but I look for our team to improve on last year’s record, and start setting the stage for some strong years of Alma tennis” noted Sandro.
Alma will look to try and break the stranglehold that Kalamazoo has had on the conference as the Hornets have won the league crown every year since 1936.
Posted: Tue, February 7th, 2006 at 4:26PM
