Even for veteran KR coach Sherri Bennett.
“I expected us to be middle of the road,” she said. “I thought we’d win a few, and we’d lose a few.”
The resilient Cougars have proven everyone wrong. After their 4-1 win over Greenon on Thursday, May 6, the Cougars stand 17-3 overall. They also finished 14-2 in the CBC for the second straight season, in second place behind only perennial southwest Ohio powerhouse Tippecanoe.
“I’ve had several coaches say, ‘Boy you have been such a surprise this year,’ ” said Bennett. “It’s because I’ve had kids who worked hard in the offseason and did what they had to do. They stayed together as a team.”
That togetherness was tested at the beginning of last week. Bennett lost her second singles player for academic reasons, forcing her to reshuffle the lineup yet again.
“I was nervous the first couple of matches,” she admitted. “We beat Tecumseh and then had Tipp (KR’s second loss to the Red Devils this season). Then we played Bellefontaine, and that was a nail-biting match. But we battled back, and that just told me that they were ready.”
Bennett split up her first doubles team and moved senior letterman Kyle Price into second singles temporarily, then bumped KR’s second doubles team of Jacob Abshear and Josh Kearns up into the No. 1 doubles slot.
“The guys just did what they needed to do,” she said. “We moved up a couple of jayvee players, Brendan Taylor and Brady Brennan, and they did a great job.”
Still, Bennett knows Tippecanoe represents the summit her program must conquer.
“They are good, and they continue to stay good,” she said. “I don’t know what’s in their water over there. But it’s something.”
She also knows how to do it.
“I just encourage anyone who wants to play to start as young as they can,” she said. “I do a camp in the summertime for second- through eighth-graders. And at last year’s homecoming parade, when we threw out candy, we threw out information about the tennis program.
“We do all we can to create interest.”
And success — even when it is unexpected.
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