STAC GIRLS TENNIS: OWEGO CONTINUES TO PLAY DESPITE LOW TURNOUT (6 PHOTOS) (2024-09-01)

By TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
OWEGO — With six girls sports consuming the fall season, the Owego tennis has struggled with numbers in recent years, but that doesn’t deter coach Erica Haray from promoting the sport.

“In some schools, tennis isn't as popular, which is unfortunate because it's one of the sports that you could play your entire life,” she said. “I played basketball. I was in track, I was a field athlete, and I played tennis, and tennis is the only one I'm still playing in my 40s. I'm not running up and down the courts anymore in basketball. It is a lifelong sport. There's research that keeps coming out that shows that racquet sports are the best to add years to your life, and tennis is the best of them.”

Owego won’t field a full team, but does have young ladies committed to play.

“We have five players this season,” Haray said. “We have one new player (Haley Griep) and one player (Charlotte Lewis) who didn't play last year who's returning.”

Two other girls (Elaina Anschutz and Mary Westcott) are returning players and the fifth member of the team (Jojo Shramek) is coming up from modified.

Shramek also plays at the Binghamton Tennis Center in the off-season and attends the junior camps.

Anschutz played singles last season and is expected to play singles again this year.

“We'll likely have one singles and two doubles teams. That's my goal, and if somebody's out or hurt, then we'll go with two doubles teams,” Haray said. “Thankfully, the coaches are pretty flexible with the smaller teams. They understand that some schools have smaller numbers than others.

“Other schools, tennis is really taking off with the girls, and then some schools, it's hard because there's so many sports available in the same season.

Haray is working on getting the newer players time on the courts.

“I think, ultimately, for new players, they really just need to get on the courts and play, and work on the skills that we teach them during the season as much as possible,” she said. “Tennis is so technical and a lot of kids have to be reminded to keep trying to use the skills that we're teaching. Once they get those down, they've got them, but it's just getting them to that point where they're using them consistently, and then they start making fewer and fewer errors once they're doing that.”

The coach also offered off-season opportunities.

“We did a lot in the off-season for the young kids,” Haray said. “We did three Hawks Nest camps for tennis this year, so we had third through fifth graders out here. We probably had about at least 40 kids playing tennis with Hawks Nest. Then we did an older kids camp, and we had about 15 kids out here for that, so we're trying to build interest.

“I know some of the PE teachers are offering it in their gym classes. We have two PE teachers who are coaching modified for us, coach Rizzi and coach VanHouten, so that's helping us too.

“We hope to grow the girls' numbers more. We are growing the boys' numbers already, so that's good. We're hopefully going to get more girls interested, but it is hard because we have so many other sports available for girls in the fall.”

Owego begins the season Friday at home against Chenango Forks.

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PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.


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