With basketball and wrestling dying down in the few weeks left of winter, Liberty North remains to have one sport or another constantly in the works, and Men’s tennis is no exception. With a diverse crowd of players ranging from veteran seniors to incoming freshman, the new season is quickly becoming a brand new challenge, of both development and perfecting of skills.

“I’d like us to continually get better at being tougher both mentally and physically on the court.” Head coach Art Smith said.

Coach Smith has spent the last five seasons with North’s men’s tennis team, taking up the challenge after his 11^th season in the tennis program at Liberty High School.

“(The team has sized up) pretty well, we have 24 boys out and graduated a lot of good players so we’ve got a lot to try and find out over the next couple weeks,” Smith said.

The Tennis team had lost a few valuable seniors last year, including Ian Holt, Will Stouffer and Austin Castel, three of the contributors among others who put Liberty North with two second place and two first place victories at Districts.

“Yes, (returning players will have an effect), we’ve got two returning varsity players, Elliott Wiskirchen and Robert Trout, both of who will be the anchors of our team.  We hope that some of our JV players and new freshman this year will be able to step in and make an impact,” Smith Said.

Wiskirchen and Trout have created a lasting impact since their freshman debut in 2012, assisting in two undefeated conferences in 2013 and 2014, and plan on transmitting that influence onto the newest players.

“(I can help out the younger players by) just being a leader for them, because of my history with the program of high school tennis, so I can hopefully transfer that onto the new players and keep this team supremely confident,” Senior Elliot Wiskirchen said.

Wiskirchen has had a very heavy influence on the court during his time at liberty north, including 4^th place at 2012 districts singles, 1^st place at 2013 districts doubles along with Will Stouffer, and 1^st place at 2014 district singles.

“(I expect the team to) just to play matches our hardest, play the best we can because most the team is freshman, and overall have a good season,” Wiskirchen said.

With only two returning varsity players and 22 non-varsity players on the squad, developing the raw talent may be quite the task, but the freshman themselves are up for it.

“I’m excited (for my first year on the team) because I’ve never played before and excited to see what comes from this eason,” Freshman Joe Jenness said.

Jenness, and other freshmen, have been practicing daily throughout last week and this one, but are ready to go the extra mile in order to perform well.

“Yeah, I’m very excited (to be on the court), I’ve been training for this, doing a lot of agility and running to get ready for the season,” Freshman Thomas Philpot said.

With the previous seasons holding a lot of quality and past players having such lasting effect on the team name, North’s men’s tennis this year has a lot on its plate, but the players are most definitely up for the challenge.

“(My expectation for this year is that we) play matches our hardest, play the best we can because most the team is freshman, and overall have a good season,” Wiskirchen said.