Linden Hall remains a member of the Lancaster-Lebanon League only in girls tennis, where the school has found recent success -- qualifying last year for the District 3 tournament after several near-misses -- and would like to repeat the experience.
Players attending media day:
Sasha Bittner, sophomore, Lancaster
Amina Syed, junior, Lititz
The Lititz school is able to compete with LL schools in tennis because it's such a popular sport, which a quarter of the school of about 100 students playing club tennis, says Steve Berkley, coach for 18 seasons.
While the team hopes to return to Districts, "our goals are to do the best we can," says Berkley, "to enjoy the experience, to have a team that's cohesive. And if we get back there, treat. And if we don't get back there, I don't care."
Bittner sees a big advantage in the international component of the school with both exchange students and international students.
"We get to learn more about each other either through tennis or how to know each other internationally, about more cultures," she says. "And I think it ends up making our team very much closer and can actually be used as an advantage, even though it can be a disadvantage as well."
The foreign students "are always so much fun to me, and a lot of them love playing tennis," says Syed. "I have friends who live in Germany who I'm still in contact with to this day, friends who live in China, all over the world. A lot of whom I met from this tennis team, which is really incredible."
Bittner says playing with a student from China helped her game by learning to play the way she plays.
"They bring this like different energy on the court that really light it up and makes a sport genuinely fun to play and makes you keep coming back to play more," she adds.
For tennis at Linden Hall, "it's the friends and the people on the team, the coaches, the friends that make it really special and enjoyable," says Syed.
And Sayed appreciates the little sidelights, such as having bananas or stopping on the way back from an away match for ice cream or pizza.
"It just makes you feel so happy to be you're like, 'Yes, this is my team; this is my sport," she says.
LNP | LancasterOnline hosted Girls Tennis Media Day at its downtown Lancaster office to connect local media with Lancaster-Lebanon League players and coaches.
