CENTERVILLE — For the Centerville boys tennis team, this season is definitely going to be a learning experience.
At least the Big Reds will be learning together and will be hoping to have fun doing it.
Centerville focused on the small victories on Monday night in their first meet of the season against Pella Christian, a team with much more experience. The Eagles used that experience to complete a 7-0 sweep of the Big Reds, winning 42 of 43 games played between five singles matches and a pair of doubles matches in the season opener for both teams.
"Overall, I like what I'm seeing so far," Pella Christian head tennis coach Aaron Fitzgerald said. "We've got a lot of good senior leadership this year. We're just going to try and shake off some rust in the first couple of weeks as we get into our season."
Dylan Casteel, one of the few Centerville players with previous tennis experience entering the season, was the only Big Red player to win a game on Monday extending Kirby Van Wyngarden in the No. 3 singles match before falling 6-1. Aaron Meinders, Rob Schruer, Rhett Terpstra and Evan Tschetter all earned 6-0 sweeps in singles play for Pella Christian before Schruer teamed with Terpstra for a 6-0 sweep of Brady Cisler and Elijah Hampton in the top doubles match while Meinders and Wyngarden won 6-0 over Casteel and Lincoln Clark in the No. 2 doubles match.
"It's a process for sure, but we've got a great group of kids," Centerville head boys tennis coach Daniel Hargrave said. "I have seven total including five that are dual-sport athletes this spring. I'm really happy to have them out. I think it's good for Centerville in general to have kids participating in multiple events. Lincoln and Dylan are two returning starters from last year that have been helping everyone out along the way.
"It's been a positive for everybody. This is the first time for a lot of our guys to play in a tennis match of any kind. I feel for them that it came against a really talented team like Pella Christian that is a really upbeat program. They're really good people, they're competitive and they're really athletic."
Pella Christian (1-0) is off until the Eagles host Grinnell on Monday, Apr. 7. Centerville (0-1) will be back home on Thursday for a South Central Conference-opening dual against Chariton starting at 4:15 p.m.
