by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Three varsity teams officially start their season this morning including the Wellington varsity boys tennis team.

Brian Peck

The Wellington Invitational starts today at 3 p.m. at the Sellers Park tennis complex. Other teams competing include Augusta, El Dorado, Goddard Eisenhower and Kingman.

The tennis program begins with a new head coach Allen Keller. Actually, Keller is not unfamiliar with the tennis program. He has served years as an individual instructor and mentor for both the boys and girls players. His son, Evan, has been a repeat state tournament qualifier, who graduated last season. In 2012, Keller and Brian Peck were partners, who finished second in doubles in 2012. 

His dad, Allen, has now taken over the program after years under the guidance of Brian Aufdengarten, who is now vice principal at the Wellington Middle School.

Keller has had 37 years of instruction since 1976 as an assistant to pro, Steve Vann, who was originally from Winfield High and was the No. 1 singles player for Kansas University prior to becoming a teaching pro at Alvamar.

This year Keller has an inexperienced group to start his head coaching career here. Peck, of course, has lots of potential having coming off a state tournament. He is one of two seniors on the team. Chaz Crittenden has no varsity experience but played junior varsity extensively last season.

Anthony Glazer is the team’s lone junior with limited junior varsity experience.

Sophomores Dutch Brownlee and Jon Ryberg both have varsity experience in the No. 2 singles and No. 2 doubles spots respectively. Tyler Pettegrew didn’t play his freshman year and will be getting his first taste of high school tennis on the varsity squad.

“You’ll see our singles players using an aggressive ‘serve and volley’ style of play – working their way to the net,” Keller said. “We are not going to have much success this year parking ourselves on the baseline and dominating an opponent by outlasting them with consistent ground strokes or blowing winners by them.”

Keller said Wellington will be taking every short ball and driving it to the opponents back hand, taking the net and hopefully knocking off their weak return to end the point with a volley or overhead.

“Many times you don’t even have to hit a winner because that style of play often puts enough pressure on an opponent that it will result in them making a lot of ‘unforced errors’ or hitting balls wide, long or in the net,” Keller said.

As far as doubles, Keller said he is focusing on four things:

1) How to get a ball in play with a well placed, medium speed serve.

2) How to work your way to the net by hitting a well placed approach shot.

3) How to volley.

4) How to hit overheads.

Wellington’s strength will be the boys getting bigger, taller, stronger, faster and quicker. Wellington’s weakness will be inexperience.

“They may have proven physical or mental ability on the ball diamond, hardwood or turf. But the jury is definitely still out on how they will perform under pressure on the court.”

Keller said he is optimistic that he can put six competitive guys on the court that will win the majority of their matches this season.

“The one thing I have learned about them so far is they are very competitive,” Keller said. “So I expect to see them grind it out and come out on top of some matches ordinary players would give up on and lose.”

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The Wellington varsity and junior varsity softball and baseball teams will start their season tonight at Rose Hill. Those games were postponed due to weather factors for 24 hours. The varsity boys will play at 4 p.m. and the girls will play at 4:30 p.m.

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Due to cold weather the middle school boys tennis team did not play. The home match with El Dorado will be made up on May 2.