The IHS Boys’ Varsity Tennis team recently won their STAC championship match, and players from Ithaca won both singles and doubles in sectional championships. I spoke with Shane Taylor, the coach of the Varsity Boys’ Tennis team, and David Riccio ’23, one of the captains of the team who plays first singles for Ithaca.
Mukund Gaur ’24: Could you both introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about who you are?
David Riccio ’23: I’m David, the number one singles player. I’ve been playing on the team since 7th or 8th grade.
Shane Taylor: I’m a dean of students at Ithaca High School as well as the tennis coach for the boys team this spring.
MG: What do you think were the biggest successes of the team this year?
DR: Well we won STAC finals, that was awesome. We really had a good team, and our levels increased a lot. Now we’re going for the individual accolades.
SH: We did really well in our section, but one of our biggest success stories this year was when we decided to leave our section. We went down to section two and section five, and we put forth a really good effort and had some really great matches against Pittsford Mendon and Bethlehem, so I think that was a new addition, as well as going undefeated and winning the STAC championship.
MG: What do you think were some of the biggest challenges to the team this year?
DR: That’s a good question … We haven’t had any challenges. Making sure everyone warms up?
SH: One challenge is we have twenty-two amazing student-athletes that all have tremendous tennis skill, and it’s really hard to come up with a lineup each day. I have twenty-two students that deserve to play in matches, and everyone is really respectful and patient. Something that I’m proud of is that twenty-two players played in a varsity match this year. We try to share who gets to play in a match.
MG: Ithaca has a really big team compared to the other schools in this region. What are some of the challenges and benefits of that?
SH: The challenges are when we go to play other schools and they don’t have enough kids for us. It’s a challenge, and it’s also hard for us to get competition in our section. Our best competition is our practices.
DR: Yeah.
MG: What were some of the biggest goals for this season? Would you say they were accomplished?
SH: We’re accomplishing them, one step at a time. Our first team goal was to win the section, and win STAC—we’ve done that. And now our goal is to send six students to states. It hasn’t happened in many years, but we’re in a good position to do that and we’ll find out at the state qualifiers. [State qualifying matches took place on Friday May 19 and Saturday May 20].
DR: Oh yeah. Our goal will be accomplished on June 4 [States for tennis will take place on June 4].
MG: What do you hope to accomplish next season?
SH: We’ve been led by so many great seniors, I’m really excited to see what the juniors and sophomores this year are gonna do next year on the team.