The Juneau-Douglas High School tennis team will begin their Southeast Region V Tournament today at 9 a.m. at The Alaska Club in the Mendenhall Valley.
Singles, doubles and mixed doubles will play.
“The team is dealing with some changes,” JDHS coach Kurt Dzinich Jr. said via email. “We must adjust to new court space issues, and the school district took a massive hit to the budget, so we have dealt with zero travel money for this year.”
Long-time Crimson Bears coach Amy Skilbred also retired but the assistant coaching staff, including Dzinich, is still on board.
The JDHS tennis team includes seniors Derek Dzinich, Anton Rieselback and Katherine Kane; juniors Gabby Hebert, Sami Good, Reuben MacNaughton and Kelson Rounds-Mcpherson; sophomores Kolby Hoover and Tristan Walker-Andrews; and freshmen Erica Hurtte, Wolf Dostal, River Reyes and Sahil Bathija.
The coaching staff consists of Dzinich and assistants Annie Kincheloe, Jacob Dangli and Mona Yarnall.
“The team is smaller than in the past,” Dzinich said. “Practices have been split to accommodate court space but a major benefit has been more focused instruction for the players.”
The Region V tourney runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday.
“The state team will then be finalized at that point for travel to State championships next weekend in Anchorage,” Dzinich said. “Erica Hurtte and Sami Good will be competing in women’s doubles, and Anton Rieselbach, Kelson Rounds-Mcpherson, Katherine Kane, and a couple yet to be finalized members will also compete. Due to the transition year for the team, we are low on women’s members, and are hopeful to add more participants for next year. We have a solid group of men’s players, but are also hopeful to add there as well. It has been several years since JDHS has won a state title, however, the team has won third place several times overall during that time.”
The state tournament will take place Oct. 9-11 at the Alaska Club East. In years past, it was the Alaska Club North as well but due to closure of the North Club and its six courts, the tennis community is in transition as well. The Alaska Club East has redone their four courts and renovated them in order to better host the state tournament.
“Last year was the first year with reduced courts and things worked fairly well,” Dzinich said. “Juneau, being the only team from Southeast, basically gets a bye into the state tournament.”
