Bemidji Boys’ Tennis Preps to Open Season Outdoors

Bemidji boys’ tennis may get to open their season outdoors this year, even with the snowfall from last week.

The Lumberjacks grabbed their shovels and took to the courts on campus Monday afternoon to clear the ice and snow that didn’t melt over the weekend, all in the hopes to be practicing there as early as Tuesday.

It’s certainly more work than just waiting for the snow to melt, but the Jacks see it as a chance to learn more about their fellow teammates and have a welcome opportunity to be outside.

“Feels good. Normally our first few meets are indoor and our practices are all indoor, so it feels nice to be able to come outside right away,” said junior Jack McNallan. “It’s fun and not fun at the same time [when] you’re doing this, but it’s a good bonding thing to start the season.”

“Kind of puts, like, a leadership role into position,” explained senior Leo Mathews. “You really have to, like, work together or else it’s going to take hours and hours.”

“Some of our players that our guys might not know as well now know, ‘Well, that’s a really hard worker and that’s a good teammate because they didn’t put down their shovel once for about 2 hours,'” added head coach Kyle Fodness. “So that was kind of fun to see.”

Bemidji lost five seniors from last year’s team, and this season’s squad has just three seniors, with four juniors, a sophomore, a freshman, and two eighth graders. So the comradery and leadership will be vitally important with such a young squad.

“Sometimes when you’re a young player, it can take three, sometimes four weeks before you hit that and really see all of those opportunities as opportunities for growth,” said Fodness. “And the big challenge for the younger guys will be, look up to the older guys as example and hit that from the first match and the first practice. And that comes with faith and trust.”

“Looking forward to be top dog on the team and lead my incoming other teammates,” stated senior Jonathon Hasbargen. “Show them how it’s done and give them advice when they ask for it. We wanna make sure our teammates are talking to each other, getting to know each other, get their chemistry down, and get the fundamentals down.”

“I just want to have fun,” added Mathews. “I know winning’s important to us all, but I think having fun’s highest priority. If you can go in no-stress, it’s kind of like takes the pressure off your back. We’re not we’re not the defending champs. We don’t really have much to lose. I think we can take it this year.”

A few of the players’ parents were out there helping the boys, like assistant coach Pat McNallan, Paul and Kristy Lappinga, Brad Uhrel, and Cliff Frank.

The Jacks are set to open the season on Thursday, April 4 at home against Crookston. If the weather holds, it looks like they’ll be doing it outside.