GROWING TENNIS TEAMS

     The girls tennis program has focused on growing the program since last school year. Head coach Kaitlin Green wanted to see more schools in the district create a tennis team.

     “I love the game of tennis and I was really stunned when I was hired that we did not have a team. Every school around us and every school district that is our size had tennis but us,” Green said.

     The tennis team continues to grow in numbers.

     “So much fun last year we had 20 girls come out and 19 boys this year we had 24 girls out so I’m excited to see it grow and to see tennis become a popular sport in the Raytown community and in our high school,” Green said.

     Green wants to grow the program to all secondary schools in the district. 

     “I would love to see the middle schools have a club or also middle school tennis teams. The USTA provides free programing, rackets, nets, and all equipment to all schools if they just request it,” Green said. “So I’m hoping to get all schools on board and appropriate supplies but my biggest goal right now is to get Raytown South's program started.”

     The schools need more tennis courts to grow the programs and not limit the amount of players.

     “They just need a head coach. Then they can start and then hopefully we’ll be able to build tennis courts, because one of the biggest things limiting how many kids can play tennis and how good we’re getting is the fact that we have only four courts to practice on and we only have 24 kids, so not everybody can be practicing at the same time,” Green said.

     Students learned new skills on the team. This is junior Brook Johnson’s second year on the team.

     “It’s been great learning fundamentals and new things,” Johnson said. 

     Johnson enjoyed tennis so much she wants to continue playing tennis after.

“Freely yes, I will continue to play tennis. I can’t exactly say for a team,” Johnson said.