CALDWELL – When James Caldwell High School men’s tennis senior Nick Lim entered the varsity team as a freshman three years ago, he looked to the guidance of his older brother Chris, a senior captain at the time.
Now, following in Chris’ footsteps, Lim will captain the team for the second-straight year, passing down the lessons he learned from his brother.
“When I first came into high school, I was little nervous… we had a very tough schedule that year so that was intimidating,” Lim said. “My brother just told me you have to keep your head up because (losses) are going to happen but you are going to win some too, so you have to look forward to that and just keep going.”
While Caldwell dropped to the Colonial Division of the Super Essex Conference this year after competing in the Liberty Division with a 10-12 record, Lim is prepared to pass along his brother’s message of resiliency this season.
“We can definitely do well this year,” Lim said. “That’s definitely one of our top goals, to win the division. I also hope we can get a run in the county tournament, especially my last year. (A run) in states or counties, winning the first round or two, it would be awesome to see my team go far.”
The Chiefs enjoy the comfort of returning their entire starting lineup in singles as Lim will take the start at first singles, junior Seth Frey will play at second singles and classmate Spencer Travers will be at third.
“(Seth) is a very good player, he’s a strong hitter. He just needs to stay consistent but once he just plays more, I think he’ll really be able to win matches and show what he’s made of because he’s a good player,” Lim said of his teammate.
“(Spencer) is a wall. He gets everything back and that’s what I need from him. He needs to work like a horse and be consistent and if he can do that, keep the ball deep and be a wall like he usually is every year, he’ll be pretty successful. He’s been doing that for the past two years and it works,” Lim added.
At doubles, Caldwell will look to the talents of the senior pair of Christian Matthews and Rishi Patel as well as junior Ashvin Nagarajan, sophomore Matthew Schablik and junior Paul Ruffolo, who will rotate with each other throughout the season. Senior teams Daniel Elias and Jack Zhuang alongside Richard Scott and Jean-Baptiste Mollet are expected to contribute to the Chiefs as well.
“As far as the team is concerned, we have a number of kids back from last year’s team that played Varsity and because of that our expectations are higher,” head coach Ron Masson said. “We feel we’re a stronger team than we were last year.”
In addition, Masson believes that individually Lim has a solid chance at qualifying for the singles state tournament.
“He’s been close but he hasn’t been there so I think he’s really looking forward to doing it this year and I think he will. He’s a good player,” Masson said. Lim must win 60 percent of his matches during the regular season in order to qualify.
Still for Lim, it’s all about the team and fighting through frustration during matches by trusting in their experience and abilities.
“We all know each other and how we play and what competition we can go against,” Lim said. “We know how to play and what we need to do.”
The team will hit the road to take on Belleville on Monday, April 10 at 4 p.m. before returning home to play Cedar Grove on Wednesday, April 12 at 4 p.m.
“It’s you versus the ball, not you versus your opponent,” said Lim.