STARKVILLE, Miss. — The Starkville High School tennis team competed in their fourth match against Kosciusko, Friday, March 5, at home. 

Sophomore Luca Hoffman played boys’ doubles with Gordon Welch, who is also a sophomore. Hoffman has high expectations for the rest of the team’s season. 

“I definitely think we will have a couple of more good matches, so we just need to keep our heads down, stay humble, work hard, and leave it all out there.” 

Hoffman said that the corona virus hasn’t affected this year’s season as much as last year’s. 

“[Corona] hasn’t affected our season as much because we have enough courts for all of the players to carry out our practices the same way, but last year we barely had a season because everything shut down,” Hoffman said. “Also because of the pandemic, a lot of the junior varsity kids haven’t been able to come out and get as much practice as we have, but I can’t even tell because they are getting some great wins.” 

Zoe Elder is a senior on the team and has been playing for six years. Elder is sad to leave the team, but hopes to be a role model for the younger players. 

“It is really sad that this is my last year, after playing for so long, but I just hope that I am setting a good example for the younger players so they can continue to do good.” 

Elder said the team has been doing many things to prepare for the tennis season. 

“We practice every day, just trying to groove our strokes, and we do a lot of scrimmages at practice,” Elder said. “Some of the players also go and practice on their own during the weekends just so they can improve and work on things by themselves.” 

The SHS tennis teams have nine more matches. Their next match is at home, March 9, 4 p.m. versus Ridgeland.