Next week may be the start of a new sports season, but there are a lot of old faces taking the court for Seneca High School boys’ tennis.
The defending Olympic Conference National champion Golden Eagles have a senior-heavy team this season, raising expectation for a team that has advanced to the South Jersey Group III quarterfinals in back-to-back seasons.
This year’s group of seniors is extremely experienced. Singles players Cody Cassise, Ryan Groves and Pedram Haresign have been on the team for three straight years. Doubles players Mike Miller and Kevin Sulewski also have varsity experience.
Cassise has been Seneca’s best player since he joined the team as a freshman in 2013.
“When I was a freshman, the entire team was practically seniors,” Cassise recalls. “When they all left, I wondered what we were going to do. We didn’t have a lot of young guys my age.
“Out of nowhere, we got Ryan and Pedram winning second and third singles and Mike who also played second and third varsity singles. We all came together as sophomores and it was our team from then on.”
Seneca has had similar seasons the last two years, going 13–8 in 2014 and 12–7 in 2015. In both seasons, they won one playoff match in the South Jersey Group III tournament before bowing out.
“Since we’ve been playing varsity since we were sophomores, if you play someone and you get killed by them, chances are they are someone who’s older than you,” Miller said. “As we’ve been getting up in years, it’s been getting better for us because we’ve always been young at varsity. Now, we’re coming up to be top dogs.”
“The expectations are much higher because we’re seniors,” Groves said. “We have to leave it all on the court.”
Cassise enters the season as one of the better players in South Jersey. At the South Jersey Interscholastic Championships last year, he was the №3 seed and advanced to the round of 16. This year, he plans to get even further.
“I’m working on consistency,” Cassise said. “Just trying to not get too ahead of myself with hitting the ball so hard. I’m trying to keep the ball in play longer.”
For the team, a deeper run in the South Jersey Group III tournament and a repeat Olympic Conference National Division championship are goals. Cassise said the team doesn’t want to look too far ahead, however.
“The goal is to play it day-by-day,” he said. “We don’t take any team lightly. If we play them in a tournament earlier in the season by chance, we’ll know their strengths and weaknesses but we don’t take advantage of anything. Each year, we’re trying to get a little bit farther.”
One advantage the team has with playing together for so long is the camaraderie. The team is very tight and players will help one another during matches.
“I’d say we’re pretty united,” Haresign said. “The varsity team is real connected because we’ve been playing with each other.”
“When you’re playing a match against another team, having the whole team out there supporting you, telling you what to do, it really helps,” Miller said.
The group is united to make sure this season is its best yet. With an experienced lineup hyped to start the new season, Cassise said there’s no reason why Seneca can’t best its performance from the past two seasons.
“Now that we’re seniors, we’re going to play every game as hard as we can and try to not let anyone down,” Cassise said. “We want to finish our senior year with a bang.”
