Triton Tennis is returning seven letter winners from 2023:
Caden Large - Senior
Isaiah Vaca - Senior
Jaydon Heckaman - Senior
Blayze Hensley - Sophomore
Colton Large - Sophomore
Max Ritchison - Sophomore
Hunter Arvesen - Sophomore
Triton welcomes back Oliver Ickes (Sophomore) and another new sophomore Jaydon Whitaker. Triton Tennis welcomes 8 Freshman Newcomers to the program including Levi McFarland, Max Johnson, Brayden Nifong, Clayton Andrews, Criss Stoddard, Jackson Faulkner, Kayden Hummitch, and Judah Stephenson.
The tennis numbers are up which is great news for the program. Coach Gardner believes this can be attributed to the Triton Tennis Camps being run by Emily Nifong for elementary through 9th grade students. During these camps, several upper-class boys and girls tennis players help and devote several weeks of their summer to help the triton community. Secondly, Coach Riley Linville stepped in and coached Jr. Baseball last spring and developed a connection with incoming Freshman that has had an impact with
incoming freshman.
With Coach Linville's dedication and encouragement, the Triton summer conditioning and team building went extremely well as we averaged 12 to 15 kids at every workout. We planned a trip to the Warren Dunes at the end of summer conditioning. We played football, kickball and climbed the dunes and swam until after the sunset. We arrived late for all the freshman parents as the kids were having so much fun we had a difficult time getting them ready to depart and Coach Gardner knew you couldn’t bring young kids home hungry so we had to crash a drive-thru because they devoured all the prepared food for the day. Coach Linville also introduced a Blue / Gold Scrimmage with the purpose players and parents the ability to play and see a tennis match from introductions to last point of tie breaker. The night practice went smoothly and finished under the new lights with Coach Gardner team winning. Lastly, before the season started, we held our first ever Ping-Pong Tournament and Pizza party as our last team building event. Jaydon Heckaman won the Championship match against Caden Large.
We are leaning hard on our 3 seniors for being leaders and accountable for setting the standards for underclassmen. They have taken the leadership role and embraced it with open arms. Coaches believe the season will be as great as the three senior makes it as they have put the time and effort this summer. Of course, we need the sophomores and Freshman to step up in a big way to support the seniors’ leaders. Most likely we'll have only two returning letters playing in the same positions and one of those with a new partner.
The Bourbon community continues to provide encouragement and the boys look forward to that turnout and support for the tennis team. Along the same lines the coaches would like to extend a big THANKS and SHOUT OUT to the following:
- School board for replacing tennis lights and new sidewalks.
- Laura and Dan for having bus for Dune’s trip and season.
- Brian for having Tennis courts looking great for practices and home matches.
- Rodney for making all the schedule changes this summer and fall and helping with getting everything ready for fall coaches.
- Terri Large and Amanda Heckaman for taking the tireless roles of Team MOM
- Orion and Sylias for maintaining the Triton Athletic page and providing Tennis results.
- All the local business sponsors that purchased banners and sponsored courts or
made donations.- Subway
- Etna Green Elevator
- Large Farms
- Nifong Farms
- Affordable Storage
- S&K Construction
- Farmers Drainage
