BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Sports Writer
The Wolves took to the courts on the first day of competition to finish in third place at the Novi Invite, Aug. 19.
“It was great,” said Chas Claus, head coach for Clarkston Boys Varsity Tennis. “We are a very young team so we were anxious to see what we had. We played well. A lot of what I saw was positive. Our players were active and were trying some of the things we were working on. They didn’t just sit back and wait for things to happen. They were proactive, and I was very pleased on that.”
Highlights from the day included Noah Fasczewski finishing with a gold medal on the Singles No. 1 court, and Brendan Aughe finishing with a silver medal on the Singles No. 4 court.
“We graduated not just our top players but a lot of players,” Claus said. “We have, other than Noah on the top, some singles guys who haven’t played singles before. Some of our doubles guys didn’t have a lot of experience either. From that standpoint, we were just very ready to get out there and see what we have.”
Claus added it was good to be out there playing.
“It’s been so long since there has been high school sports,” he said. “It was the first day any fall sport was legal to compete. I went back and did the math later in the day. There hadn’t been a single high school sporting event in 160 days. Getting to get out there breaks that streak on the first available day was really cool.”
The Wolves played Okemos on Tuesday.
“Okemos is very strong,” Claus said. “They are a Division 2 school that decided to move up to Division 1 to compete for a couple of years because they are very strong. At this point, we are young enough we are going in not as let’s win this, but let’s do some things better than we did the last time out and use the skills we have been working on. Doing it against top competition is great because you learn a lot and whether or not you can hang with those teams.”
As of now, the Wolves varsity team travels to Lake Orion on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 4 p.m., and Pioneer High School on Saturday, Sept. 12.