Salisbury boys tennis team heads into this season with a few new varsity players after graduating four seniors from last year’s line up. The good news for the Falcons is three of the graduates were doubles players and the team will have two of last year’s three singles players returning this season.

With sophomores Nolan Grejda and Tristan Monahan moving into the top two singles positions, and senior captain Drew Hines returning in doubles, the Falcons will look to match or exceed last year’s 6-7 overall season and 4-5 campaign in the Colonial League.

“Since this is a rebuilding year, will these players step up to winning ways, as a young team can,” asked Salisbury head coach Stan Fidrych. “I think they can. We can match last year’s record if they all give their best, first as a player who can win and then as a winning team moving forward.”

Salisbury graduated its top singles player from last season in Chris Marinos, along with doubles players Chad Ekdahl, Baxter Reihman and Daniel Scialla.

Filling in the third doubles spot for the Falcons in their first match of the season was Jacob Knerr, another sophomore. Hines played on the No. 1 doubles team with senior Will Raymond, while junior Jackson Kramp and sophomore Blaine Berger played at No. 2 doubles.

First-year players Mohammad Suleiman (junior), Ahmed Suleiman (sophomore) and Connor Leavy (freshman) are some other players that Fidrych expects to help the team in matches this season or in the future.

Salisbury dropped it’s opening match last week against Bangor, 5-0. The Slaters won all five matches in straight sets, but the Falcon doubles teams both battled to close first sets.

The team rebounded with a win over Pen Argyl Monday, beating the Green Knights in straight sets.

The Falcons have a busy schedule this week. After Monday’s match against Pen Argyl, the faced Jim Thorpe on Tuesday, Quakertown Thursday and Palmerton on Friday.

If the Falcons can improve on last year’s win total even by a couple victories, it could earn the team its first berth into the District 11 team tournament since 2017. The top eight teams in the district’s power index qualify for this year’s tournament.

“We have two singles players who played as freshman from last year who are ready and can lead this team to wins,” said Fidrych. “The supporting cast is beginners, but young enough to improve and follow them.”