Mystic Valley Eagle’s tennis team wins its inaugural Varsity Match

  Early last week, after three and a half years of building a tennis program, Mystic Valley Regional Charter School (MVRCS) successfully began its inaugural Varsity Tennis season against Greater Lowell Tech at Howard Park in Malden. It was a beautiful day for a tennis match and Mystic Valley’s young team brought its best game. Mystic Valley won the overall match, 5-2.

  Starting off in the singles number one slot, Mystic Valley’s Wes Cunningham played a strong game, but he was edged out 6-8. Mystic Valley was not to be deterred and in the number two, three and four singles, Ethan Co, Katherine Yu and Varun Chawla defeated their Greater Lowell opponents 8-3, 8-3 and 8-5, respectively. Next up, in doubles matches the number one team of Ameya Panchal and Rakshit Rangaprasad won, 8-3, followed by the number two team of Ally and Tabitha Manseau, who lost a tough match, 6-8. Closing out the day, the doubles team of AJ Rutkauskas and Elijah DeTore completed the successful day with a 6-3 win over their Greater Lowell opponents.

  MVRCS’s first varsity tennis team is coached by Stacy Adler Smith, an MVRCS teacher. Her assistant is Abby Aleksa, another teacher at MVRCS. Head Coach Adler, a former high school and college player, following the match said, “All three winners in singles played hard, broke their opponents serve and were in control of their match the entire time, and teamwork was crucial to the success of the doubles – giving their teammate encouragement, as well as communicating on the court.”

  Both coaches said they were proud of the team in the way they played and composed themselves. They further commended the entire team, including those who did not play in the first match “who supported their teammates by cheering and watching the strategies that were used to be successful on the court.”

  The team consists of students from grades seven through 11. The rest of the team members are Victoria De Assuncao, Noah Elbadoui, Ronique Grandoit, Gaby Lajoie, Shravya Medarametia, Sayuri Panchal, Nathan Tessema and Jonathon Yip. It has been four years in the making, and with such a young team the future is very bright.