Heritage’s tennis teams completed their 2024 season including winning three conference games despite having an inexperienced team, but even though the season is over the team continues to grow and improve.

The girls tennis team had nine seniors graduate from the previous year, leaving a very young and inexperienced team. This made them work extra hard to thrive this season. The girls won three out of eight matches this season with the three wins being conference wins.

When asked what moments were memorable from the season, Marin De Vera (9) said, “Finding out I was number one on the team as a freshman.” competitions,” said Alexis Davis (10).

The boy’s team won one out of 10 of their matches, but not having any senior players made this season difficult.

According to Coach Taylor Tinsley, Karl and Kaden Berry played #1 doubles all season long and were just two games away from qualifying for the state tournament.

“[Our girls and boys team] improved so much from the beginning of the season to the end. I [am] very proud of them,” said Tinsley.

Both boys and girls teams consisted mostly of freshmen with no prior experience, however they have improved drastically throughout this season and still managed to put up a challenge against the upperclassmen on other teams.

Next season they will improve much more due to the development of players’ mentality and physicality throughout this year and in the offseason.

“I won and lost some and I got to create new friendships along the way, but most importantly improved my mental and physical health,” said Mari Lavivanh (11).

With the improvement in the mental and physical health of the team’s players, it is shown through a social aspect. For several players, feeling prepared mentally is more than just knowing how to play, it is also knowing how to communicate with your teammates and coaches.

“My favorite part of the season was getting to know how to play tennis [and] getting [our] first win as a team. [Another part was] learning to have better teamwork [and] show more sportsmanship [along with] getting to bond with my coach and teammates,” said Isaiah Valdez (9).

Coach Tinsley expects that most of this team will return next year, increasing the potential for a dominating team.

Even though taking care of themselves physically and mentally is prioritized, the defending state champions do way more than dance and practice routines. Coach Lockard puts them through tough conditioning workouts to show them that becoming state champions again is not easy, everything is earned.

“We do lots of conditioning to make us sharper and stronger to make sure we win another state championship,” said Dayanara Andino (9).

The team is very prepared and they look forward to having a good season. Most of the dancers think they need to keep the same focus as the past three years since they know competition will be fierce.

“Our bigger struggle this year is to pursue a state championship even though we just won one. We still need to learn how to work that much harder to get another state championship because now everyone is after us and everyone wants to beat Heritage,” said Sydney Gaffney (11).