The Bath County High School tennis team has its first ever undefeated regular season

Hot Springs, VA – This year Bath County High School has its first undefeated regular season tennis team in the history of the school. The team has a record of 12 and 0 and won the Pioneer District championship.

Ali McLaurin is a freshman and in her first year playing tennis, “It feels really good, because we have a good team and everyone helps me so I kind of got into it easily.”

Jenny Quantz is also a freshman, “It’s good. This is my first year so it’s kind of exciting.”

Rachel Robertson is a junior who’s been playing since 9th grade, “It’s exciting, to work together as a team.” She’s been playing on the team for two years under Coach Mike Bollinger, “I like him. I think he’s a good coach. He’s taught us a lot.”

Emily Arrington is a freshman, “I think we have a pretty good chance with an undefeated season. It’s a really great team and we have a good coach.”

Nikki McDaniel is also a freshman, so this is her first year on the team with Coach Bollinger, “Considering we’re 12 and 0, I guess he’s pretty good. It’s pretty amazing what we’ve accomplished, really, considering that we’ve never done that before.”

The Bath tennis team plays Graham High School in the Region C semifinals on Wednesday May 30 at Radford University.

Coach Mike Bollinger:

“We don’t have a lot of big hitters or hard hitters,” says Bollinger. “We try to be very consistent and not beat ourselves and make the other teams beat us. Graham is 15 and 1. So obviously they’re a very good team. And if we can get by them, I would suspect we would be playing Radford which won the regional championship last year and has their whole team back. So it’s going to be a challenge, but you don’t expect easy competition when you get to the regionals. So we’re going to try to go down there and do what we’ve done all year.”

Bollinger is in his second year as head tennis coach after spending one year as assistant coach.

“I’m really proud of these kids,” says Bollinger . “I don’t think anyone, parents, me, anybody, really thought anything like this was possible. This shows what happens when you get a group of good kids who are willing to work hard and do what they need to do in practice. This shows what can be done.”

To hear another story on the Bath tennis team that aired previously, visit our website alleghenymountainradio.org and click on local news archives.