Newton girls head tennis coach Erick Zehr says the team lost a huge senior class from last year, with high level players. Zehr adds that with the loss of several girls from last year’s varsity lineup, many of the athletes on this year’s squad will have to step into unfamiliar roles.

“We are going to have people who only dabbled in singles, they are going to be leading our singles lineup. We are going to have people who maybe got a little bit of doubles experience, now they are going to be mainstays in the singles lineup. Kids that were only JV last year are going to be part of the varsity doubles lineup. You have a little bit of that every year, but there’s just going to be a lot of people getting new challenges this year.”

Zehr says he’ll be leaning on his senior captains, Paige Benson and Alexis Dirksen, to show the team what it means to work hard everyday and approach everything with a growth mindset. 

The Newton girls tennis team opens the season Monday at Des Moines East.