Boys Varsity Tennis aims for State

This year, the St. Paul Academy and Summit School Boy’s Varsity Tennis Team started off the season with high expectations and even higher energy.

Last season, the team won the section 4A championship and continued to state where they lost to Breck, earning 2nd place overall. “This year I hope that our team can make it to State again and possibly take the champion title,” said senior captain, Noah Keogh. Keogh has high hopes for the season with a relatively young team, and believes that varsity tennis has potential to continue what has now become almost a team tradition; making it to state-level competition.

“We are a very young team. I’m the only senior this year, and I think that’s a good thing for the team. We took the state title last year so I can’t imagine what our team will do this year or in the next couple years.” Spencer Burris-Brown, one of the middle schoolers on the team, says that the season could be challenging because he’s “a midget seventh grader in a high school league,” but he has high hopes for the season as well. His experience with the varsity tennis team has been a positive one so far; “Everybody’s really energetic, and everyone helps each other out… It’s just a really fun environment to be in.”

Keogh agrees that the team’s infectious energy is one of their defining characteristics. “One thing about the varsity tennis team is that we always have energy. If we don’t, we might as well give the match up right there and then. We try to control everything in our power and work as a team counting each others’ names and keeping the energy high, even if we are down in the match.”

The team is off to a promising start, and on their way to their eventual goal of the state tournament, with a 7-0 win against Academy of Holy Angels in their first match of the season and another win, 6-1, against Mounds Park Academy. The boy’s varsity tennis team will face off against Minnehaha Academy at their next home match, on April 26 at 4:15 p.m..