Kevin Strand

When a tennis player loses a match or the team loses a meet, they can practice to repair their deficiencies in hopes of correcting course the next time they take the court.

When a tennis player or team loses its season because of a pandemic, there’s nothing anybody can do fix it.

Marshalltown High School boys’ tennis coach James Christensen didn’t know how to help his team get through the lack of a 2020 campaign after the coronavirus pandemic wiped Iowa’s spring sports season from the calendar. But now that the Bobcats are back on the court, Christensen has a surprising amount of experience to work with in helping his squad prepare for a return to action.

“Thankfully we do have some guys coming back after a year off where we really had high hopes,” he said. “We had some seniors last year that graduated so we are lucky that we do have a bunch of guys with varsity experience.”

The Bobcats went 9-3 in dual meets during the spring of 2019, falling to eighth-ranked Ames in the regular-season finale before bowing out of district play without winning a match. It was a disheartening finish, but one Christensen was hoping to make right in 2020.

When all spring sports participants were denied the opportunity, it was a tough pill to swallow. The best medicine, as it turns out, was a new, state-of-the-art tennis complex. Marshalltown’s 12-court venue was the silver lining around an otherwise gray year.

“That’s the only positive thing,” Christensen said. “I’m just so amazed and so thankful to our school and our city and the Martha-Ellen Tye Foundation and everybody who helped this facility come to fruition, but every time I pull up it also makes me remember how we got this facility done so quickly and that’s at the expense of last year’s seniors.

“Last year, knowing that we were probably a top-eight team in the state, knowing guys like Jack Gruening didn’t get a chance to go to state their senior year, it’ll always be a bittersweet time when I pull up to this place. We held out hope for a solid month until they finally pulled the plug on [the spring season]. It was hard for me to tell the guys ‘don’t practice, stay at home.’ Even when we had a poor result two years ago at our district meet we were all pretty down, but that was on us. To have something taken away by outside forces, I just didn’t know how to console kids in that sort of situation.”

Marshalltown’s path out of the past is to just play for the future. Seven members of the 2021 campaign have at least some varsity tennis experience for the Bobcats, starting at the top of the lineup. MHS junior Kevin Strand played anywhere from 2-4 singles in 2019 and he’ll align atop the Bobcats’ roster this spring.

Strand went 8-3 in singles play as a freshman, and his younger brother Jason, currently a sophomore, will likely play the No. 2 singles spot this sesaon. They will likely be a top doubles pairing for the Bobcats as well.

“After that we have just a bunch of guys that have played some varsity doubles and a couple guys that have slotted in and played some singles in spurts during their sophomore year,” Christensen said.

Seniors Ethan Benscoter, Drake Davis, Nicolas Price and junior Colin Schmit each saw singles action two seasons ago, while seniors John Loney and Justin Melde were in the doubles lineup. After losing a season to a global pandemic, Marshalltown may already be ahead of the pack in varsity experience this year.

“Having seven guys coming back is huge in a year where we’ve gone two years without competition, so they mean quite a bit to us,” Christensen said. “Just having that experience and being able to tell the guys what it’s like to be in a match and to know what we have to bring to be able to beat some of these teams is huge.”

The Bobcats open their season on Saturday at the West Des Moines Valley Invitational, taking on Des Moines East in the opener at 9 a.m.

“A lot of guys on our team, tennis is their main sport and the spring season is the only one that’s been lost so they’re ready to compete, that’s for sure,” Christensen said.