Spring is supposed to be a prime time for work on the tennis courts but the effect of COVID-19’s spread across the landscape has changed that for schools around the country in all sports.
For Louisville High School, Dillon Mitchell’s bunch only got a chance to get one match in when they went to Kosciusko. The Wildcats didn’t get the win, but Mitchell was proud of how much they grew over the course of the few weeks of practice.
“I was really proud of our guys and our girls going into it. I only had two or three kids that had ever played tennis before, so we wanted to spend a lot of time learning the fundamentals and the rules,” Mitchell said.
“It didn’t go how we wanted but the kids got better. It was fun to watch those kids develop a sense of what was going on and being able.”
Mitchell’s team was led this season by Nichloe Adams and Jocelyn Gill in girls doubles and Keon Smith and Reggie Lowery with the boys.
The team thought that they were going to be off for just a week when spring break hit and then the news of the coronavirus began to hit. Mitchell wanted them to stay healthy and safe during this time but has also encouraged them to stay active to be prepared for if sports return in the next month or so.
“Going into spring break, I really encouraged them to continue what we had been doing. To me, sports is kind of secondary. I just wanted to make sure that they’re healthy and doing what they need to be doing to stay healthy. sports is a good way to escape everything that’s going on so we’ve posted workouts on line for our kids to do from home but I want them to relax and enjoy the break.”
