Men’s tennis team finishes tough season
SWING—The Liberty University men’s tennis team hopes to bring a championship title to the program. Head Coach Chris Johnson says the incoming recruits will greatly improve the team for future seasons.
Photo Credit: Kevin Manguiob
The Liberty men’s tennis team had a rough season this year, with a regular season record of 7-15 and a Big South Conference record of 0-7, but they have hope for future seasons.
Finishing last season at the national championships for the first time in the 30-year program, Head Coach Chris Johnson had high hopes coming into the 2016-17 season, but it was not smooth sailing for long.
The team had a rough start when incoming senior and star player Sam Matheson decided to skip his senior year to go pro, removing him from the roster weeks before the fall season began.
“We didn’t expect that,” Johnson said.
“That’s always a feather in the cap of a program, that we’ve got kids going through our program and turning professional.”
Johnson said since Matheson was one of the team leaders, it was a struggle for some of the younger team members to fill his spot.
“When we lost him we knew it would be a struggle to try to get some of our young guys up to speed to play in our top positions,” Johnson said.
“Then we were hit with some ankle injuries and pneumonia and different things that were taking our top players out and so by the end of the year we just couldn’t get healthy that fast.”
One player who stepped up to fill a leadership role was sophomore Eddie Gutierrez.
“It did put some pressure on me,” Gutierrez said.
“Personally, I feel like since I was selected as one of the captains of the team, I feel like I had to give good results on the court. So in that way my teammates will follow me.”
Johnson was surprised again when upperclassman David Bush quit the team for academic reasons.
The remaining team was young, consisting of freshmen, sophomores and the team’s lone junior, Diego Castano.
“I was really proud of Diego,” Johnson said.
“I was really proud of Diego just for the maturity he showed and the leadership he showed all the way through the season.”
Despite the circumstances, Johnson sees the youth of the team as a promise for the future.
“Even though we struggled with missing some players, we had a lot of injuries and illnesses and things like this,” Johnson said.
“We were so young. (We) had one junior and the rest freshmen and sophomores. So moving forward, we’re going to have one of the most experienced teams going into next year.”
To get through the rough season, Johnson integrated the motto “push forward” to keep the team motivated and grounded.
He also implemented the Bible passage Psalm 23 for the season.
“We were going over almost word for word, but definitely verse by verse Psalm 23 as the semester went forward,” Johnson said.
“I just felt like God was in the middle of it through the whole way and that really kept them motivated.”
The team took the passage and applied it to their lives, like freshman Vince Salas, who traveled from the Philippines to attend Liberty.
“We talked about Psalm 23 for a few months, and it started to get to me,” Salas said.
“If you think about it ‘As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil,’ and that came through my life as I walked through these obstacles, like being away from my family.”
Despite a difficult season, things are looking up as Johnson said the recruitment for next year is going well.
“Just on its merits, it’s the strongest recruiting class we’ve ever brought in,” Johnson said.
“Our recruiting class for next year received votes to be ranked in the top 25 in the nation of all Division I schools.”
The team took the opportunity to learn from the tough season, and was able to grow in tennis despite the harsh record.
“I think I grew as a team player,” Salas said.
“Tennis is an individual sport, so when we’re out there we usually think of ourselves, how we do, how we play the game, but now you come to Liberty and you want to play for the school and for the team, and you have to build up on that. You win or you lose, it doesn’t matter, you have to cheer for your team.”
Looking to the future, Johnson hopes to nab the championship title as he builds up the budding team.
“We want to bring a conference championship trophy here into our building,” Johnson said.
“More than that, we’ve got a lot of players that are really hungry to get out there and be successful, so our goals are not only just about winning, but about seeing these kids grow and take them through not just the process on court but the process off the court.”
The season may have been difficult, but the Flames are planning a comeback.
“This year I knew was going to be tough because we have such a young team, but I have good expectations for us,” Gutierrez said.
“Next year I think we’re going to have a good team, maybe even better than the team we had last year.”
Panyard is the news editor.