SUPERIOR – Once again, county rivals will join forces as the Alberton Lady Panthers and Superior Lady Bobcats come together to form a single team during the spring varsity tennis season.

There were approximately 10 girls on the team as of Wednesday, March 19, though Head Coach Rick Berreth said more come every day. Three of the girls on this season’s team come from Alberton High School. According to Berreth, Class B/C tennis requires eight players to make a varsity team.

“A varsity roster that can play at one time is four singles and two doubles,” Berreth said.

There are high hopes for the team this season. Last year the tennis team took third in doubles at the State Championship and won the championship in singles. While the player who won graduated last year, Berreth was confident of the current team’s skill.

At least two members of last year’s varsity team, Alberton’s Hailie Bahm and Superior’s Heather Kelly, have returned as seniors this year. Bahm was part of a strong doubles pair before her partner graduated last year.

The team will have to rebuild some of its strength to reach the championship again this season. Berreth said they lost 11 of the 14 kids from last year’s roster.

The team has five seniors this year. While all grades are represented, the remaining bulk of the team are freshmen. Some of the girls have experience playing junior high tennis, but for most of the team this will be their first time playing on the varsity level.

“We’re inexperienced this year,” Berreth said. “But there’s a lot of enthusiasm.”

According to Berreth, Loyola is expected to go a long way this season. He said they brought back most of their team from last year and are expected to come back strong again. The other conference teams this season will be Darby and Valley Christian. He noted Granite was fielding a team for the first time this season, but it was still not certain which division they would be in.

While many of the team’s matches will be away, there will be several at home as well. Berreth said the Superior/Alberton team was at a slight disadvantage because they did not field a boy’s team.

“Some of the schools that have boys, they kind of shoehorn us into their schedule,” Berreth said. “They want to play us because, year in, year out, we’re pretty good.”

Berreth is a veteran of coaching tennis with 31 years under his belt, 29 of which have been at Superior. In fact, he is the only tennis coach the school has ever had. This is expected to be Berreth’s last season and he said he plans to retire after this year.

Over the years, he said the team has been good and has a history of doing well in divisionals. His hope is for the team to continue with the same quality of performance this year.

“We did have a streak in the 90’s and 2000’s where we won 11 straight years in divisionals,” Berreth said. “We have had a good program.”