Bulldogs, Lady Bulldogs tennis get ready to take the court

The Mission High School tennis boys, girls tennis team will be trying to rebound from losing several of their key components to last year’s team that boasted of several individual state qualifiers for the MHSA Class C state tennis tournament.

Bulldogs, Lady Bulldogs head coach Kimimi Ashley is accustomed to the revolving door nature of athletics and has built a reputation in the valley for constructing tennis players with no prior experience.

Ashley will have only one returner from a successful boy’s program last season and the senior is looking to qualify for state again.

The Bulldogs will have Warren Castor, who finished first at Divisional doubles and whose doubles partner Tyne Toemkoa, a foreign exchange student from China, will not be playing together this season.

The rest of Ashley’s boy’s team will consist of all freshmen straight across the board.

They will have one foreign exchange student, Lawrenz Ehlers, who will also be part of the group of freshmen. The rest of the freshmen consists of Lalo Bravo, Trevyn Carter, Riley Hutchins and Joseph Ashley.

The Lady Bulldogs will have new player Pamela Frost on their roster.

Because of the youth and inexperience, Ashley has to take a different approach with her team than what she did last season.

“Everything is brand new to my players and they will be competing against other teams while they are still learning how to focus on the other players,” Ashley said.