Exeter Boys’ Tennis Swings to New Heights

Big Red boys’ varsity tennis finished this season with an impressive 8-1 record. The season began with a six match winning streak before they lost to Milton Academy in a hard-fought game. Unfortunately, the team was unable to win in Interschols, losing to Andover 4-0.

Despite the loss in Interschols, the team was overall very proud of their nearly undefeated season.

“In general, I think we had a very successful season—our record speaks for itself,” upper Moises Escobar said. “Although we came up short at Interschols, we played hard all season and I know we are all very proud of each other.”

One of the most memorable parts of the season was the team’s win over Andover. Like the Milton match, the team faced another really tight match, except this time, they pulled through.

“One of our especially memorable wins had to have been over Andover,” Escobar said. “Three very tight matches that Joon Kim, Cameron Gruss and Brian Niguidula managed to win gave us the 4-3 win over our rivals. It was a great moment for the team.”

After the regular season ended, the team went on to place 3rd/4th, losing in the semi-finals. Although they were slightly disappointed that they didn’t place first, it was a nice improvement from losing in the quarter finals last year, especially since they beat Deerfield en route this year.

 The two preps who joined the varsity roster this year, Brian Niguidula and Cameron Gruss, proved to be valuable assets to the team this season. Niguidula played exceptionally well as the number two position on the team and Gruss did the same as the number four position, never losing a game. 

“Brian was a prep, which can be a little nerve racking if it is first year on the A Team,” lower Rex Tercek said. “But he performed so well at the number two position and towards the end of the season we could always count on him to pull out a tough match and help Exeter obtain the victory.”

“The other prep on the team, Cameron, who played number four, was equally valuable,” Tercek added. “Up until the final match of Interschols, he had not lost a single match. Day in and out, no matter what, we could also count on Cam to win his match, no matter the skill of the opponent, and that was instrumental in our success.”

Along with the new players, the team also had a new coach this year, Frederic Brussel. Senior co-captain Charlie Boyd commented on the friendly yet productive atmosphere that Brussel brought to the team.

“Freddie is a great guy. More or less he is a teammate. We all talk to him and relate to him the same way we would with a teammate,” Boyd said. “But he did buckle down when he needed to and when he wanted to so we still understood his position in the hierarchy. But that didn’t mean we didn’t talk to him like this before.”

Although the new players and the new coach proved very successful, the team was still missing some of the great players from previous years, which proved to be a slight problem. 

“Most of the year’s previous that I have been here, we have had kids that have been on a different level in tennis,” Boyd said. “They would go out and play one and they wouldn’t lose a game. It was not the same thing this year. We didn’t have the luxury of having someone who could single handedly win one double without any help, so we had to play better down the rest of the lineup.”

However, in the end, the team did a great job overcoming this challenge as they improved tremendously. 

Lower Joon Kim commented on some of the specific areas where he saw this improvement. “The team improved its doubles play throughout the season, and the singles play has stayed solid,” he said. “Although the season was capped by a disappointing loss at New Englands, we still pulled off a great record, a huge improvement from last year.”

Like Kim, Escobar also saw great improvement in the team in various areas. Especially for the new members of the team, a lot of the players were still refining their game and learning what it is like to play on Exeter’s team.

 “We knew which matches were must-wins and for the most part, our guys went out there and pulled off some clutch performances,” Escobar said. “Tennis is a very individualistic sport, so for many of our players this was the first time they had played as part of a team and I think they benefitted greatly from the team comradery, using the energy of the team to push through tough matches.”

After a great year, the team is looking forward to next season and is already forming training plans so that they could start off strong next year.

“One of the issues with spring sports is that even if you train all summer, chances are your team will be rusty by the time you get to the season,” Escobar said. “I know our coach, Freddie, is looking into having some sort of tennis team trip to somewhere where we can practice and play matches during spring break. I think that would really benefit our team, particularly right at the beginning of the season to get off to a good start.”

Unfortunately, the graduating seniors of the team will no longer be able to participate in these future plans, but Kim believes that with some incoming recruits, the team will be able to replicate this year’s great performance.

 “We have a deep team filled with underclassmen with potentially solid new tennis players, so the future is looking bright,” Kim said. “We have nowhere to go but up.”