By Dominick Langello
The Western New England University men’s tennis team kicked their season off in March after completing rigorous offseason workouts and training programs to prepare themselves for the upcoming season, while the women’s team continues their offseason with preseason matches.
With the women’s team playing their season in the fall and the men playing in the spring, both teams look to continue to develop their programs and continue to improve in the coming months. Both teams took a spring break trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to match up with opposing teams with similar goals.
The Golden Bear’s women’s tennis squad is very freshman-heavy, with all six of the team’s top six being freshmen. Being a fall sport, their trip to South Carolina consisted of preseason matches instead of the men’s team playing real matches that count to their record. It is very rare for a team to have that many freshmen playing right away. This is a true testament to the recruiting of head coach Patrick Roche. He has found players straight out of high school that have made an immediate impact.
One member of the women’s team, freshman Catie Seklecki appreciated the opportunities provided by the spring practice. “I think that it just means we have a lot of time together to bond as a team and to grow as a team,” she said.
“Our spring season is all about fine-tuning skills and learning new ones,” Seklecki said. “So I believe that if we’re driven and learn these new skills and bring them into the summer, when we return for our conference season in the fall, we’ll be an extremely strong team.”
The future is bright for the women’s tennis team, and continuing to play preseason matches as they did in SC has ensured that they will continue to improve.
For the men, their first official match for their season and their trip to SC was against Carleton College, resulting in a 9-0 loss. In comparison to other WNE lineups, the men’s tennis squad is incredibly young. Five of the eleven members of the team are freshmen, and four of them compete in the team’s top six lineup. Every match consists of WNE’s top six players against their opposition’s top six players, just like the women’s, allowing spectators to enjoy the fairest and most competitive matches possible.
Freshman Kyle Poccia, a member of the men’s team who is among the squad’s top six players, is aware of the challenges the inexperienced Golden Bears have faced so far this season. “We’re a young team,” he said, “and none of us have ever competed at the collegiate level. It’s just a lot of different learning curves in front of us, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of adjusting so far.”
Poccia suffered a high ankle sprain before the season started, but fought through the injury and made it into the lineup after a brief hiatus. He’s extremely optimistic about the future of the program.
“I think it’s a really bright future,” Poccia said. “Just the fact that four of our six are freshmen and we have a pretty good recruiting class coming in. We’re confident in our abilities, and it’s a bright future. We’re just hoping to take it one game at a time and one season at a time as far as our development goes,” Poccia said.
The men’s team looks to finish off their season strong with matchups against Suffolk University and Western Connecticut University at the end of their regular season.
Not only is the WNE’s men’s tennis squad young, but they also have a fairly new head coach. Steve Posner previously worked for WNE as the tennis team’s assistant coach since 2017 before getting the head coaching job in 2021. In Posner’s first full season, the Golden Bears had a record of 6-8 and made it to the CCC quarterfinals. Although their 1-7 current record may not seem all that successful, coach Posner looks to build on the future with this freshman-heavy lineup. These players are gaining some much-needed experience and have an extremely bright future ahead of them.
The future of WNE’s men’s and women’s tennis programs certainly is bright. Be sure to look on wnegoldenbears.com for both team’s schedules and stop by a match when you can.
