Bulldog tennis teams ready to hit the court for new season

As both the boys and girls teams have patiently waited for the snow to melt off the courts, they have been busy practicing indoors to prepare for the season.

The Whitefish teams are scheduled to play in the first matches of the season this week against cross-town rival Columbia Falls.

For the boys team, Bulldog head coach Chris Schwaderer says they have a solid group returning from last year’s Class A State Championship team. The Whitefish boys shared the state title with Billings Central after both the No. 1 singles and doubles teams went far in the tournament.

“We’re looking great, there’s a lot of kids who are committed,” Schwaderer said. “We do have multisport athletes, so they’re staying competitive throughout the year.”

The team also holds voluntary practices at the indoor courts in Kalispell throughout the winter to stay sharp, and because of that a lot of kids are coming into the season ready to go.

Some returning players that will make an impact this season include Mason Kelch, Jesse Burrough, Johnny Nix and Dane Hunt. Also coming back to the courts after being out last season for an injury is Aydin Mulholland, who had a successful freshman season two years ago.

Last season Kelch played on the No. 1 doubles team alongside now-graduated Aaron Dicks. The team took third at state. Schwaderer says Kelch has a lot of potential playing either singles or doubles, and the team will look to him to lead.

“He’s a really talented kid, he loves tennis,” Schwaderer said of Kelch. “He could play singles or doubles… he’s a really nice kind of foundation of our returning team.”

Burrough also played on a state-qualifying doubles team last year and Nix and Hunt were a doubles pair that narrowly missed state.

In all, there are 22 athletes on the boys team and they will be looking to continue the success the Whitefish tennis program has established in recent years.

“We’ve been on a good roll lately and I think that’s great…” Schwaderer said. “It's good feeling like we belong. We’ve built and we’ve worked to a point where we have good teams. Success breeds success. We have confidence.”

THE WHITEFISH girls team is entering a rebuilding phase after graduating 10 seniors from last year’s team. There are 20 players total with nine of them being freshmen.

Head coach Patrick Dryden says it will be like putting a puzzle together as far as the lineup, but he has some promising newcomers as well as strong returning players.

“It’s definitely going to be a transitional year. This is something that I’ve never experienced before in 23 years…” he said. “It's going to take a lot of time before we’ve got a product that we’re ready to put on the courts.”

Alivia Lusko will be the team’s No. 1 player as she returns after playing varsity singles last season. She finished fourth in the singles play at divisionals, narrowly missing out on state. Dryden says Lusko hits the ball extremely hard and has a weapon of a serve, but consistency will be the challenge.

“She made incredible improvement last year… she really rose up the ladder and came within a match of qualifying for state,” Dryden said.

The coach mentioned a couple of multisport athletes, Maggie Mercer and Ainsley Scott who will join the team this season and will be in the varsity lineup. Camry Kelch is an incoming freshman who shows a lot of promise and, Gretel Vine and Zoey Marzo have worked hard to earn spots in the lineup.

To start the season, Whitefish will play Columbia Falls on Thursday. The boys will play in Whitefish at Grouse Mountain courts at 3 p.m. and the girls are at Columbia Falls High School at 3 p.m.