Wolverine tennis squad continues to battle while also learning the game

The final score Thursday mattered not to Polk County girls tennis coach Richard Davis – every Wolverine match this season feels like a victory.

Unsure for much of August whether the Wolverines would even be able to field a team, Polk County and Davis recruited enough players to have fielded a full lineup for every match this season. Polk has yet to post a win, falling 8-1 to Hendersonville on Thursday, but with a roster full of players still learning the game, Davis has been pleased with what he has seen.

“I’m just happy we have a team,” Davis said. “This is just a great group of girls, and the girls are starting to get into this. At the beginning, some of them came out just because we asked them to, and just to help Polk County have a team.

“Now, all of the sudden, they are starting to like it. Girls like Shannon (Collins) and Rhian (Alley) are loving it more and more every match we play.”

Senior Alivia Livesay, the team’s lone returning player, won her match on Thursday and figures to be a contender for a Western Highlands Conference title. Livesay is joined by two other seniors – Destinee Schlabach (currently injured) and Casey Morris – and a group of freshmen and sophomores.

“I don’t know if we’ll win a match this year, but this is a good group of girls, and with only three seniors and the rest freshmen and sophomores, if we can pick up one or two next year from the middle school and maybe somebody moves in, then next year we can start winning some matches again,” Davis said.

“The good news is, all of them like it, and most of them will play again next year. They have been thrown into the fire this year. We had one practice and then we played three matches in a row. Some of them were still learning how to keep score and what a backhand was and so on. Now I can safely say we’re a tennis team. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to even say that this year, but I feel very secure in saying that we have a tennis team.”