Hi there, and welcome back to Slōs’s Tennis Corner, your source for all of the latest Westside Tennis news!

Thursday, Sept. 25 was Tennis Spirit Night for our match against Millard North. We had an excellent turnout of fans! Our experts estimate that at one point there were over 20 students present, which shatters this season’s previous record of eight students. Although we lost the match by a narrow margin, the tennis team truly appreciated the support, and it will become even more important as we head into the Metro and state tournaments.

Monday, Sept. 29, the Warriors hosted the Westside Invite at Koch Tennis Center. Many high school tennis analysts consider this to be the most difficult tournament of the season because of the 10 teams present; all of them are expected to be in the top 10 finishers at the state tournament. At No. 1 doubles, senior Sean Padios and sophomore Dillon Ketcham placed fifth. At No. 2 doubles, seniors Tom Kutilek and Max Slosburg (me!) placed fifth, as well. Although the doubles teams didn’t place as highly as they would have liked, both look forward to using this as a learning experience to improve their game to perform better where it really matters: the state tournament.

The regular season is coming to a close. The team has matches against Omaha North, Creighton Prep and Millard West before entering the postseason tournaments. The Prep match will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2 at Koch Tennis Center. We would really appreciate fan support, as this will be our most difficult match of the season. The want students to participate in an overnight effort to guard the Westside courts the night before the Prep match (just like we guarded the football field prior to the game against Creighton Prep), although nothing has been organized so far. It is vital that we protect our facilities from the vandalism of rowdy Prep tennis fans.

We have a big week ahead of us here at Westside Tennis, and we hope that you will be a part of it. Until next time, GO WESTSIDE TENNIS!