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YSU tennis has international flavor
college tennis
You can throw a dart at a map and likely come close to hitting a country where a member of the Youngstown State men’s tennis team is from.
The team, which is off to it’s best start since head coach Mickael Sopel took over before the 2013-14 season. The team started out 4-0 with wins over Tiffin, Niagara, Duquesne and Saint Francis (Pa.). The team’s record currently stands at 5-3 and the team has about a month and a half left until Horizon League play starts.
The team features one local athlete, Mitch Maroscher from Salem, who’s the lone senior on a team featuring five freshmen. The rest of the roster is composed of players from Spain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Singapore and Israel — just to name a few.
“It’s interesting to learn about different cultures and meet different people,” Maroscher said. “I just view it as fun. There’s more variety to the team and we’re like brothers.”
Maroscher does give himself extra responsibilities as the lone American and senior on the team. But while you might think it’s difficult getting players coming from Great Britain to the Ukraine and Peru to all mesh as a team, Sopel, a native of Paris, said that hasn’t been an issue.
“It’s really not any more different than an American player who is coming from out of state,” Spoel said. “Either way you’re coming away from home. Some people adapt great to the change to the college life and being away from parents.
Two of the biggest culture shocks Maroscher said he had to teach his foreign teammates about is how big the Super Bowl is and figuring out how to order from a college student’s staple in terms of food — Chipotle.
“They just discovered Chipotle,” Maroscher said. “At first they didn’t understand what they wanted from there so they just got what I got and it was way too spicy for them. But they’ve learned what they like now.”
In terms of their on-court performance, Sopel said he’s quite pleased with the early-season results, but his eyes are set on the larger matches in conference.
“With the way the season is scheduled, [conference play] is the only priority I have,” Sopel said. “What we’ve done so far is great and encouraging and we have a real shot to be very good this year, but now is not when I want to be at our best.”
Sopel said he delibrately trains his team to be at their best once the Valparaisos and the Green Bays start creeping up on the schedule.
“The [early-season wins] build upon themselves and they build confidence but the way I train the team I don’t train them so we’re ready right now. I don’t think we’re close to where we can be. Hopefully we’ll be much better when we peak at the end of March.”
There is still work to be done before the crucial league matches though. The Penguins were swept by UNLV and New Mexico State in Las Vegas and still face a number of strong programs in the coming weeks like Dayton and Xavier. Maroscher hopes these matches will strengthen his team for the final tests of the year.
“We’re playing good teams,” Maroscher said. “We did in Las Vegas. It’s preparing us for conference and showing us we’re capable of beating those teams. It gives us self belief because of how close we are.”