The boys’ tennis teams have entered the state championships and, with the season coming to an end, the seniors on the team are now reminiscing back at the last four years, while also looking ahead to what is to come.

This year, the tennis team has “performed well” according to Josh Stein (’16). With only one loss, against Dwight Englewood, the team entered the States Championship to play its first game against Cresskill.

The team beat Cresskill, continuing on its quest to win States. Senior James Hollenstein believes they have a good chance to make it to the final.

“Freshmen year, I was horrible. I didn’t even really start on JV, and now I’m a starter for varsity which is pretty good. I’m doing singles now and that’s a pretty big improvement,” Hollenstein said.

James was not the only one who has looked back at his time on the team and seen improvement. “I’m much stronger. I’m much faster now than I was when I started,” Zach Forstot (’16) said.

Zach continued to explain how his performance overall seems to be reflective of how the team has done. “I’m 3-0 so far in both singles and doubles. I think I could say my performance overall this year is reflective of how the team has been doing.”

Each player has his own memories from the tennis team that he is going to keep with him during and after college, Josh Stein explained.

For Forstot, his best memory has been his first win this year. His favorite aspect of being on the team is making all new friends and building such strong bonds. Forstot, along with other Seniors, made it clear that he was going to miss all the great bonding experiences the team has had, such as tennis dinners.

All the boys on the team got together for a barbecue at Coehl Gleckner’s (’16) house for their last team dinner.

Not only did everyone who went to Gleckner’s barbeque claim to have enjoyed themselves immensely due to the company of the whole team, but also they seemed to have particularly gotten a kick out of the ping-pong matches and basketball games.

Many of the players are going to take the skills that they learned from being on the team with them to college, however, most do not plan to play competitively in the future.

“I will not continue playing next year. Not competitively, at least,” Forstot said.

As the season comes to a close, many of the underclassmen and players currently on the JV team are preparing for the possibility to play on varsity next year. Many of the current seniors are hoping that the team continues to perform well next year.

“Try your hardest. Work hard and you will do fine,” Hollenstein said.