TAYLOR MADE: COVID-19 — WISH THEY COULD WHACK IT WITH A RACQUET (2020-04-07)

The coronavirus plays no favorites. That's why we have had to shut down our schools, stop playing sports and shelter ourselves at home.

Even tennis, one sport where the competitors are practicing social distancing — at least in singles — the majority of the time, can't risk the potential of spreading this menace.

With spring sports inching closer to cancellation, I'm continuing to recognize some of the seniors who are probably going to miss out on their final season of high school athletics.

I touched on track & field Sunday and lacrosse on Monday. This installment will touch on tennis. Speaking of which, I wish I could roll Covid-19 into fuzzy little balls and let the seniors whack it with a racquet all the way back to China.

OK, let's move on. Tioga County was relatively young across the courts in boys tennis last year, but there are some solid players returning hoping for a final hurrah.

I should mention that even though it's considered boys tennis season, smaller school districts are allowed to have girls in their programs to help boost participation numbers.

Newark Valley is one of those programs. In fact, the Cardinals had more girls than boys on their 20-player roster in 2019. This year's team is supposed to have first singles player Colby Davis back. His senior counterparts (assuming last year's players returned) include Ronan Dougherty, Noah Shiel and Alex Umiker. To the best of my knowledge, there are no senior girls on this season's roster.

Waverly mixed boys and girls as well. The Wolverines have four seniors who played last year. They include Chloe Croft, Maddy Goodwin, Justice Johnson and Caleb Wilcox.

Wilcox is the only returning singles player, having held down the No. 2 or No. 3 spot in 2019. Goodwin saw some action at first doubles while Johnson and Croft spent most of their time at the second and third doubles spots, respectively.

Owego had a very young group last year with no seniors and one junior on the roster. That upperclassman, Evan Hamed, was coming back for his senior campaign and expecting to maintain his first singles spot.