Youth leads Colonial girls tennis team to fast start
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Shrewsbury - With virtually a completely new cast of characters, the Shrewsbury High girls tennis team is back on familiar footing, following up last year's 11-6 regular season with a 6-3 start entering play this week.

"We lost five seniors off last year's team, we have just one senior back, and we have a freshman and sophomore in our regular lineup," Colonials coach Jack McGinn said. "Considering all that, I'm very happy to be 6-3 at this point. Things could be a lot worse."

Having departed through the gates of graduation were No. 1 singles player Marissa Cassilo, No. 2 singles player and team captain Carolina Zelinski, the No. 1 doubles team of Julie Hannum and Julie Leifer, and No. 2 doubles player Stephanie Mariani.

Junior Ruby Lee, who was Shrewsbury's No. 3 singles player last year, has moved to No. 1 singles and has been named team captain. Sophomore Mahdavi Duvvuri, who played at No. 2 doubles last year, is now the Colonials' No. 2 singles player.

"Ruby and Mahdavi are very solid players," McGinn said. "They don't make a lot of unforced errors. They're patient players who will gradually push the pace or continue to hit to an opponent's weakness, and then when their opponent makes a mistake, they quickly capitalize on it and win the point."

Playing No. 3 singles for Shrewsbury is freshman Katya Simkhovich.

"She's got a lot of promise," McGinn said. "She is going to be a good one. During preseason practice I would watch her hit with her teammates and there was just something about the way she played, the way she carried herself. She was very quietly confident in her abilities. Nothing overpowering, just very solid in all areas: serve, return of serve, volleying. I threw her in there at No. 3 singles to see how she'd do and she's performed very well."

A pair of juniors are the Colonials' No. 1 doubles team - Amanda Card and Deidre Ericson. No. 2 doubles, by McGinn's own admission, has been a by-committee experiment. Seeing time in mixed-and-matched combinations at second doubles have been Alison Cheon, the only senior on the team; junior Kristin Coggeshall; and sophomores Tory Benoit and Alicia Collins.

"I told the girls tennis is 40 percent physical and 80 percent mental," McGinn said, borrowing a famous malapropism from Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. "We've got the physical part down pat, we're just working on the mental part."

There is only one senior on this year's team, but McGinn will lose at least three players between this year and next, as Cheon will graduate and a pair of promising freshmen Jessica Howe and Kendall Selsor will move at the end of the school year. Howe is relocating to California and Selsor is moving to Virginia.

McGinn is in his 11th season as the girls tennis coach at Shrewsbury after having spent 12 years as the Colonials' boys tennis coach. He reached a milestone earlier this season as the team's victory over Fitchburg was the 200th victory of his career.