Poplar Bluff's new girls tennis coach Michael Sowatzke has been blessed with great numbers and a large senior class.
Twenty-three girls have joined the team this season, one short of the maximum the high school tennis courts can support. Sowatzke, who was an assistant with the team the previous two seasons, said he is used to having 16-18 girls on the team.
"We have lots of talent to pull from, lots of freshmen and sophomores so we can get better. Practices are full," Sowatzke said. "We have a really solid top three and our bottom three of our varsity are coming along nicely. We've got a lot of really good form coming in. We're hoping, maybe not in the beginning of the year, but hopefully by mid-season we'll be pretty strong.
"It is really stressful (being a head coach). You don't know all the things that go into it. Uniform order forms and bus schedule things. It is nice, though. You sit on the sidelines a bit, biting your tongue as an assistant coach," Sowatzke continued. "It is nice because you get to do your own thing but it is also stressful. All the good things are a little bit your fault and all the bad things are almost all your fault."
The varsity team at the top is anchored by returning No. 1 Sara Holland, followed by Mya White and Clarissa Varner. White finished last season ranked third while Varner started out her freshman season on JV and worked her way up to No. 6 by the end of the year.
While the team still has some challenge matches to play before their season starts Friday at Dexter, which Poplar Bluff hasn't beaten since 2011, Megan Murphy, Simone Anders and Annaleese Williams comprise the rest of the varsity roster.
This puts four of the Mules' five seniors in the top six (Holland, White, Williams, Murphy). Fellow senior Emily Barry is currently ranked 10th.
Poplar Bluff started last season 2-0 with wins over Sikeston and Arcadia Valley before finishing 4-10. The Mules lost 5-0 to Farmington in the first round of the district tournament.
"We're hoping to give the seniors their best chance of winning districts, which we haven't done in a long time," Sowatzke said. "The rest we are building up so the next year and the year after we can have some really solid tennis."
Sowatzke has 16 freshmen and sophomores on the roster, many of whom have little to no experience.
"A real tennis swing is kind of a hard thing to get, and two weeks isn't a whole lot of time. But we are seeing better tennis. We're seeing girls, instead of hitting it like a hammer above their heads, they are moving and hitting it closer to their stomachs," Sowatzke said.
In the first week of the season, the team focused heavily on fundamentals with little movement, and now they are trying to incorporate those drills into games. Sowatzke said he wants to add more play time into the practice schedule, with the Mules spending about an hour on drills and then trying to use those drills in matches.
"I'm happy to see a lot of people getting away from bad technique and moving toward the good stuff," Sowatzke said.
Poplar Bluff will host Dexter (Sept. 5), Jackson (Sept. 6), Farmington (Sept. 12), Charleston (Sept. 18) and Sikeston (Sept.19).