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PCHS wins first home tennis match

Solveig Karlsen prepares to return a shot in Park City s match against Uintah on Tuesday afternoon at the PC MARC. Christopher Reeves/The Park Record
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After spending the early part of its season on the road to places like St. George and Ogden, the Park City High School girls’ tennis team finally got to play in front of home fans on Tuesday afternoon at the PC MARC.

The Miners didn’t disappoint, cruising to an easy victory over region rival Uintah. Park City coach Tim Donnelly said he was pleased with the way the players instituted a new game plan.

"We’ve been working on a different game plan with this team that affords us the opportunity to do different things, which is good," he said. "We just want to be more aggressive right off the serve and return of serve doing a little serve volley and chipping and charging when possible."

No. 1 singles player Solveig Karlsen and No. 2 singles player Danielle Lecher both defeated their opponents easily using the new plan of action.

"Solveig and Dani won pretty convincingly," Donnelly said. "I was happy to see both girls fulfill that game plan."

And the success kept coming for the Miners.

"Jessica Santos (No. 3 singles) did the same thing as Dani and Solveig," Donnelly said. "She won quite handily in straight sets."

The No. 1 doubles team of Kylie Schwalbe and McKenna Tychsen also dispatched Uintah quickly.

"They’re working on a lot of movement up at net and putting away their volleys," Donnelly said. "That’s been the strategy of the whole week."

The match against Uintah was the Miners’ first region match of the season. Donnelly was glad his team got started on the right foot, especially heading into the Duel in the Desert tournament in St. George this weekend.

"We’re going to be facing some 4A and 5A schools," he said. "So I think it’s going to come down to staying focused. We can’t get overwhelmed by big offense and we need to understand that there’s a time to be offensive and there’s also a time to play defense and maybe let the [opponent’s] offense crack and crumble."

Upon returning from St. George, the Miners will have a busy week ahead of them. On Tuesday, they’ll travel to Union for their second region match before returning home on Thursday for a match against Morgan, yet another region opponent, at the PC MARC.

Donnelly enjoys the home court advantage the MARC provides PCHS.

"It’s great," he said. "We really do appreciate all the parents coming and watching and all the home support. It’s fantastic."

Due to construction on the MARC’s outdoor tennis courts, some of the JV matches have, and will continue to be held, at the courts at Trailside.

"We’re actually using a couple courts out at Trailside because we only have four courts here and Uintah had a team just a little smaller than ours. They have 25 girls and we have 28."

Thursday’s home match against Morgan will begin at 3:30 p.m.


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