Quality over quantity for Wampus Cat tennis

2017 schedule

4/8 — @ Lewiston league

4/13 — @ Post Falls JV

4/20 — @ Cd’A Charter

4/22 — @ Lewiston league

4/28 — @ Inland Empire

5/4 — @ Cd’A Charter

5/9 — @ Troy

5/12 — @ Districts

5/18 — @ State

CLARK FORK — Whatever they lack in tennis experience, they make up for with athleticism, as the five-member Wampus Cats tennis team hits the courts for the 2017 season.

Senior Jensen Heisel is the lone boy on the team, and like everyone else, is a three-sport athlete.

“He likes to play aggressively,” said Cats head coach Jeff Emmer of Heisel, who also played football and basketball. “He’s a force to be reckoned with at the net.”

A pair of sophomores return with varsity tennis experience in Lily Simko and Grace Shelton, who join first year players senior Sarah Holderman and sophomore Ellie Lambert on the girls team. All of them have been teammates in basketball and volleyball, and are quick studies on the court.

At a small school like Clark Fork, there are only so many athletes, and with the track and golf teams attracting many this year, it makes for a smaller than normal tennis team.

“Even though it’s my smallest squad without a lot of experience, it’s also my most athletic and they are a real pleasure to coach,” said Emmer. “The wet spring has had us practicing most days in the Filling Station youth center. In the long run I think that’s really going to pay dividends as they’ve been working hard refining their strokes and building proper muscle memory.”

Emmer said Simko has the most consistent ground strokes of his girls, and that Shelton is the most aggressive, pouncing on balls at the net in doubles. Both Holderman, who is tall, and Lambert, who is quick, are picking the game up fast. With just five players on the team, Emmer will be able to drill a lot of reps once they get outside and the squad should improve with more matches.

When it’s all said and done, Emmer is hoping to take as many players to state as possible.

“I feel all three second year players have a good chance of qualifying for state,” said Emmer of Heisel, Simko and Shelton. “And I won’t put it past my two first year players either.”

In the Cats’ first two matches, which were played as scrimmages with mixing and matching players on both teams, they performed well. Clark Fork won seven of eight matches against the Post Falls JV, and won both of their doubles matches and went 1-3 in singles against Troy.

Clark Fork, the rare 1A school with a tennis team, will travel south to face the bigger teams from their district on Saturday, April 8.