Seymour’s Ava Sunbury watches a camper serve the ball during a game of tic-tac-toe last week during the Seymour tennis camp.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Seymour’s Joe Schmidt tosses a ball to the camper during a drill at the Seymour youth tennis camp last week.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Caroline Spray serves the ball during a game of tic-tac-toe during the Seymour tennis camp last week.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Head coach Jacob Hunt talks to a group of campers last week at the Seymour tennis camp.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
It was a busy week last week out at the Seymour tennis courts as the Owls’ high school team put on a youth camp that lasted all five days of the week.
Most camps don’t go everyday, but Seymour was able to keep it fun and engaging throughout the week.
They split the camp up into two groups, with elementary-aged kids doing one hour from 5:30-6:30 p.m., and then middle school-aged kids would go from 6:30-7:30 p.m.
For first-year head coach Jacob Hunt, having a yearly camp is a good way to get younger kids involved with the program to hopefully create the Seymour tennis pipeline strong.
“It’s definitely about an infrastructure,” Hunt said. “Keeping kids playing tennis over the course of several years, that’s how a good program starts.”
There were multiple stations each day of the camp, all focusing on different skills.
The main areas Seymour taught was groundstrokes, volleying at the net, whether overhand or backhand, and also serving.
One day for serving, kids competed with tic-tac-toe. If they got a serve in, they would be able to put down a “X” or an “O”, so whoever could get the most serves in would end up winning.
At the end of every day, one kid in each group would be given a star, meaning they performed really well that day of camp.
Small games and awards like that is what kept the camp fun and gave the campers something to strive for while also working on their skills.
“We focus on three main groups, your groundstroke game, your volley game and your serves,” Hunt said. “It’s sort of just hitting those three major groups as major building blocks for your tennis game.”
Hunt ran the camp with assistant coaches Liz Davis and Will Rinehart, and they also got a lot of help from members of both the boys and girls tennis squads.
The high school kids would be assigned to a group of campers and take them around to each station. Not only does that help build connections with younger players, but Hunt believes coaching the game also helps players get better at it themselves.
“It’s also great for our high school kids to be out here and help out,” he said. “Teaching tennis is a great way of learning how to play tennis better, so obviously a win for everybody involved.”
The Seymour boys tennis team will be starting its practices the first week of August before officially beginning the 2023 season on Aug. 14 at Waldron.