Photos by SuperSource Media, LLC.
BALLSTON SPA — The Ballston Spa High School (BSHS) varsity girl’s tennis team is kicking this season into high gear as they enter their first year competing in the Section AA league.
“Last year we were section finalist in the A’s and we move up to AA’s this year so it’s gonna change a little bit as far as our goals,” said Coach Mark Rabideau.
Coach Rabideau has coached the BSHS varsity tennis teams for eight years after volunteering for the job. This is their first year the team’s moved up to become a Section double A team, and they are excited to begin playing new schools including Bethlehem and Saratoga Springs.
The team is not only excelling on the courts, but as student athletes as well. While the coach doesn’t hold them to a specific academic requirement, the team does a pretty good job of averaging grade percentages in the mid 90’s.
“We always stress the student first and then the athlete. And we are constantly stressing the importance of the classroom and then seeing tennis as a bonus to that,” said Coach Rabideau. “We really lean on our captains (Kaia Anderson and Madison Galvin) and our seniors to model that. We always hold ourselves pretty high in the classroom and academics. Typically, we do pretty well in that regard.”
This year’s starting team is a majority of upperclassman with the exception of eighth grader Isabella Kaldy.
For a sport like tennis, most matches are competed individually, with the exceptions of competing in pairs for doubles. In spite of the relative isolated competitive nature of the game, the Scotties tennis team encourages unity.
“We try to balance both the team and the individual. We do a lot of team bonding outside of the tennis courts to get the team unity and then on court we’re always trying to keep an eye on our teammates and build them up when they need a little build up and that’s pretty much the balance there,” said Rabideau.
Friday, September 6, you can see the Scotties take on local team Saratoga Blue Streaks at 4:15 p.m. at Saratoga Springs High School.
