After a year in which the team went 12-4 and made it to its first-ever Central Jersey Group 1 final, the boy’s tennis team has taken a bit of a step back this year to rebuild after the loss of five key seniors from the team last year. 

Senior Ronnie Runquist has been outstanding for the Pirates this season, winning nine of his 11 first singles matches for Cinnaminson.  However, past Ronnie, there is a lot of youth on the team that is filled with freshmen and sophomores who are learning, but taking a great deal of lumps in that learning process. 

After Ronnie, only the third singles and second doubles has won one set for the year, dropping the other ten opportunities along with second singles and first doubles.  So, Ronnie has been a bit of a one-man show for the Pirates tennis team this year.

Last year’s team had a few great seniors working hard to drive the team to the top at first, second and third singles and half of the first and second doubles team, meaning that the Pirates had to make up for over 70% of their team that they lost to graduation, which is not an easy task for any team at any time. The hope is that the younger players will learn from Ronnie and continue to build and practice to get better and hopefully take another toward more wins in the next few years.

Ms. Hooks, the coach of the Cinnaminson Boys’ Tennis team, is impressed with how the team is performing in practice. Although the team has not won a lot of games, they have worked hard in trying their best to dominate on the courts.

Coach Hooks says “The team works great together in showing a lot of teamwork and teaching each other new things with the more experienced players giving tips to the newer players  Though it is a rebuilding year we still hope to win at least half the matches. A lot of the other teams this year seem to have a lot of experienced kids so they hope to try their best.”

This year the team has worked hard during practice and especially at matches. Their dedication to the sport is very important and hard work in practice is very important as well and that will show in their future matches. Coach Hooks expects great playing and a lot of improvement from players in the future. 

The team travels to South River tomorrow in a very difficult playoff matchup as the 12th seed against South River before hosting Palmyra on Friday and Pemberton next week to conclude the season.