Steve Johnston is beginning his 16th \u2014 and if you ask him \u2014 final season as head coach of the Kodiak High School tennis team.<\/p>\n
The longest-tenured head coach in program history said he hopes to retire at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just aging out,\u201d said the 71-year-old. \u201cBetween this and the Bears Den, it is just time to take a breather.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnston, who also runs the school\u2019s snack shack, has enjoyed teaching the youths of Kodiak the game of tennis while racking up a handful of regional individual and team titles. He would like to go out with more hardware.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the talent to do better than what we have been doing at state and regions,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cIt would be nice to have a dominating finish on the way out. Our athletes are generally better; we just are not competing enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kodiak is returning four of its five state qualifiers from a year ago in senior Karelle Reas and juniors Sabrina Eufemio, Will Murdoch and Molly Fitzgerald. Reas and Murdoch won last year\u2019s Region II boys\u2019 doubles title, while Fitzgerald (girls singles) and Sabrina Eufemio and recently moved Leah Flerchginer (girls doubles) were regional runner-ups.<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald and Murdoch were appointed captains of this year\u2019s squad that features a roster of 20 players, with 12 of them being juniors. The roster includes only two seniors \u2014 Reas and Omara Caballa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Fitzgerald and Murdoch) will bring the steadiness and experience, having made it through regions and to state,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cThey are both solid players, so hopefully they will return to state this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnston said Christopher Baldanado and Rieko Morera are emerging talents and hopes that off-season training will elevate the duo\u2019s games to the next level. They also recruited players to the program. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty much when it was clear outside, even during the winter, they came down here and hit the ball around,\u201d Johnston said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Johnston handles the beginning players on one court, while assistant coach Derrik Magnuson instructs the advanced players on another court. Right now, Johnston said, the program has nine advanced players.<\/p>\n
What does it take for a player to switch courts? \u201cHit more consistently,\u201d the coach said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Kodiak opens its season with a three-day swing through the Mat-Su Valley (Thursday at Palmer, Friday at Wasilla and Saturday at Palmer and Wasilla). Kodiak hosts Colony (Sept. 4-5) and travels to the Valley Invite (Sept. 17-19) before the region (Sept. 28-29) and state (Oct. 8-10) meets. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will see how they do this year. They are good players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aug. 22 \u2014 at Palmer\/Wasilla<\/p>\n
Sept. 4-5 \u2014 vs. Colony at Wamwik Park<\/p>\n
Sept. 17-19 \u2014 at Valley Invitational in Anchorage<\/p>\n
Sept. 28-29 \u2014 Region III Championships in Anchorage<\/p>\n
Oct. 8-10 \u2014 State Championships in Anchorage<\/p>\n
Head coach \u2014 Steve Johnston<\/p>\n
Assistant coach \u2014 Derrik Magnuson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Johnston is beginning his 16th \u2014 and if you ask him \u2014 final season as head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[20017,5926,5927,5924,4478,20016,5925,2721,5928,28],"class_list":["post-53618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-alaska","tag-ball-games","tag-balls","tag-games-and-sports","tag-grass-field-surfaces","tag-kodiak","tag-lawn-games","tag-racket-sports","tag-summer-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}