township and discussed sportsmanship today's show is focused on boys tennis and i have two individuals i may be meeting with today ethan farmer i'm going to talk to him first and then conor bruce so ethan you're on the boys tennis team and your freshman but you had a very very great freshman season here i believe talking to the head coach you were eighteen three in the first doubles to into a whip ules and also to a no one single so let's talk about the season did you feel coming into the tryouts did you feel as a freshman you were a lock to make the team are you like i hope i make the team or i'm would be playing for singles what what was going through your head back a couple months ago when tryouts came up oh i really knew all the players are trying out and i knew that i can make the team because i play with them all time and it was just a question of what spot i was going to get ok what how long you've been playing tennis  tennis so sportsmanship is real big in tennis i mean you watch it on t v there's different etiquette things you know at wimbledon everyone's wearing white what are some of the things in sportsmanship protests that stick out in your mind well i just make sure i shake the kid's hand after every game i think that's important shows gets force and hit ok what about when you're calling balls in and out i know you guys self call balls i mean almost every other high school sport has you know officials or referees that are doing it tennis is at a higher level where you guys are entrusted to call your own balls in and out i mean that's a big responsibility yeah there are some kids that will kind of hurt people a lot but i try to make the right call ok what happens if there's a bad call that you like an obvious call you to serve you're ninety five percent sure that serves in and your opponent calls it out what what how's it make you feel and how do you deal with it in a sportsman ship way on means you can you can ask like are you sure that was out but there's nothing much you can really do because well after about three bad calls you can call for what's the sportsmanship rooting interest between you and your other team members i had a chance to watch the whip your finals unfortunately where you guys lost to fox chapel but i mean it seemed like you know pretty pretty cohesive team and yeah or all great friends away so just different things you're having fun how do you display sportsmanship when you're just regular old practice on a day to day basis when you don't have a match well like if ok what show what's up with your season right now are you personally done i know the team is out not the team is out the team is moving out of state so what do you what do you have in the next round i'll probably be doing the mom role is a lot easier when you have a script to follow i learned that first hand the day my son had a life threatening allergic reaction nor can a black anaphylaxis can happen when someone comes into contact with their allergic triggers it could happen anywhere any time win was probably over after st clair both in the regular season and the playoffs because they thought they were going to have a good team but we swept them both times wow that is a big when i know last year they came up short y ou guys came up short you weren't on the team but i know they did lose to st clair during the season and i think in the playoffs they didn't face it but it was just so it's great to see you get passing clear what was your personal toughest match of the season so far i thought our last sources north allegheny or me want to partner we just we just didn't play very well and we should've won it and it was really frustrating so you're playing you  partner you're playing doubles you know you're the you're the standard bearer there for peter stothard first doubles how do you get your partner from a sportsmanship standpoint to play better without being in their face and saying hey you got to play better i mean how do you guys bring each other up instead of this is a it's a tough sport you know you can play all year round play indoors you can play outdoors what type of commitment do you have how many hours a week sees during the regular season during the off season for high school tennis how many hours  could play tennis i played all year round maybe like four or five days a week not counting the season the seasons like every day playing tennis fifteen minutes you're playing ten minutes how long we pla like two hours plus every day while for a season ok and how do you balance all this time that you're playing tennis versus your schoolwork usually i just do my homework after i get home pro science are global so you do you you mentioned you played soccer before you got into tennis do you play soccer still competitively or rec recreationally what other sports do you play  stuff about one year ago i played travel soccer balls playing tennis it's just times now you have an example from this season where you turn something negative and something positive the negative situation on the court on the team or whatever else into a positive you rebounded for the next match rebounded that match yeah i think what got you into tennis and are you going to play two and a half years you just said hey there's a tennis racket sitting here let's go play i mean what what was the motivator to get you to try it take it seriously well when i was like six or seven i used to play a little bit and my brother thought maybe you can just go play tennis and it appears courts and i thought it was really fun and i just stuck with it what's your favorite shot your personal favorite shot when you're you know some overhead smash what what's that what's your go to shot that you like man i hit the shot i feel really good just a forehand i think for me i'm really confident with it i can hit still pretty good  shots what's your favorite thing about playing tennis for the boys tennis team here at peter's township high school probably getting to hang out with all the people because they're really fun and we get to do stuff together it's just a great experience if you ever felt like this this guy's been a really good sport that i'm pla and even though i'm beating him i kind of wish i wasn't being because he's really you know a good sport about it you know being very generous with his praise of you or any of that or now you're just when you're on the court it's all business  sometimes but i usually like to win more than letting him then there's there's no mercy no mercy way back when they used to have mixed doubles going into the state tournament the states are going to be tough because we've got a really tough draw the number one team in the states second round so we're going to need some work well this play your best that's about all you can do all right well that's going to wrap up this segment when i come back i'm going to be with your your colleague he is right now preparing for what feels himself and his name is connor carter s and he's also a freshman so you two are the only freshman how's it feel to be the freshman on the team good yeah feels good it's not a good feeling on that i think six of our team are also all gone next year it's going to be a tough situation a tough rebuilding year but you know make the best of this year congratulations on a great season so far thank you than we love to type the braver than you think type the type that knows the time will come when we put type one behind us we're the progress is then finished fourth in the state ok so the team championship you guys were seeded number one so you guys have a target on you how how did how did you how did you feel going into the tournament maybe it's your first year as a freshman we won in hard because we did beat them with out there too but this one with confidence excited because they haven't made it to states the seniors although there for years they were here they were made to stay so we were excited we want to get the states now what about your traditional rivals in the session with lebanon and st clair no problem with them at all this year and we beat them pretty handily in the whitfield terribly struggle our double struggle against mel levin we won three two but we beat them pretty well and kind of stay focused and just talk them down what does sportsmanship mean to you when you're playing tennis on the percentage of high school tennis team sportsmanship is just playing the game the way supposed to be play and i respect your nonsense what are things like you think that people think are nonsense and definitely shouldn't do taunting getting like loud like cheering whenever they make a mistake only supposed to really cheer whenever they hit someone hits like a good shot making fun of the other team stuff like that tennis it's kind of unusual compared to most of the other sports in high school you guys are your own officials for the most part and you make all the calls where the ball is in or  ok if they do it again then i'll probably have to get a line judge which is the coaches in this case they have to come out and watch the lines and call them make call the balls if they're like maybe missed if the person in a state on the call does that ever fair sportsmanship would you consider important to us absolutely how does it affect when you're playing the game if you feel like the other players being both a good sport and or a bad sport i mean how does it affect you as a i've been playing so long to where i can just block out the things that are unsportsmanlike and just let it go and just pass on but some of the kids experience kid they have trouble with that so we kind of have to get them cheered up and like just let it just you can do this and all this stuff how do you deal with that then is mean you're playing on your court and your teammates are playing on their courts during one of these matches is there anything you can do to try and get one of your teammates in another court to you know calm down or whatever else if you think things are getting out of control we can you know i mean i can like if they're close to me i can say let's go come on keep fighting all this stuff just to keep them focused and do the task at hand  after coming into the season you know you're your freshman but you're the you are the number one player on the team there's not a lot of extra pressure being a freshman being you know thrown into a very very big leadership role as the number one guy and first it was an icon except in my role and just did what i was supposed to do just calling tribute to the best i can because you can only do so much in tennis you can only way and you can't help others one button only just cheer them up so but i was ready i knew that i probably was going to play one coming in this year i lot of confidence i was ready for it did that create friction though with your other players that the other i know that number two and three guys were both seniors actually the team was almost all seniors this year but did that create friction with the a this freshman is coming he's playing the number one spot or you know as a team you guys are just let's go if it was a team we just kind of they kind an have a problem with freshman playing ahead of them and kind of want to if they wanted to get the state meet the one spot was the best possible thing to get us there how did you start playing tennis back when i started when i was like two or three and my mom is a teaching pro she's taught me everything and now ok so obviously your mom teaching pro taught you how to play there did you play any other sports besides tennis growing up s then school year like i usually have an early dismissal a one forty five a study that i did that on purpose so i could get out of practice so it's like two hours after school and then i usually go and work out to get the fitness for tennis later and then i just kind of do my homework in between trying to balance the time the best i can so you're three hours a day on tennis usually it's when fitness and tennis from business and then in the summer does it go to pretty much stay at three hours i play a lot more in the summer and a lot more just i love it so much i mean i just play all the time almost every day in the summer ok what what future aspirations you have for tennis i know we have one play a division one college tennis for pretty top school in the nation and then see if i can take my parents to the next level after that it's just one step at a time what are the top three four five tennis schools in the nation for do you want i think that is he you played sure you've probably run i mean i've probably been to some big tennis tournaments up if you played any any of these big time pros even casually hit around with anybody like a i don't know like a rafi or roger federer i mean i don't know if you've got to hit balls w real top guys unfortunately but i think it be fun to do i mean it's phenomenal you've been a those tournaments even to watch any oh yeah i went to the u s open when i was younger and then i went to the cincinnati open a few years ago so i yet it's pretty phenomenal and been out to the u s open and i've been down to the australian open so it's yeah it's a lot of fun to walk around and see what's going on here you just imagine hey man if i could play over there yeah so how's it look for the team next year right now we this year we finished up i think out of the starting line up there are five out of seven seniors just to freshman right how do you handle the situation next year which is two or turner's on the starting line up coming back in it's going to be a lot different varsity level and it's just it's going to be a lot of fun getting the know them and playing with some new players and see if we can do the same thing again or better next year good good good the state tournament is held out in hershey correct yes how you wonder with your torment were you worried i mean were you excited for the rematch with that fox chappell will call him the villain going back up against him after you lost how did how did the championship match work out and with beals i didn't get to play him in the would be oh i mean in the state tournament but i got fourth lost in the semi's and then lost in the third and fourth place and they really tough really close matches kind of gone either way  i think lost in the corridors to the kid who won it last year and he wanted this year so he repeated ok but those played szymanski before just the two times we've played oh that's it you never had any history before the never hit no history before that you for taking time out of your busy schedule to sit down and chat about sportsmanship today with today's hypercompetitive focus on sports and academic achievement is important keep in mind the critical role sportsmanship always plays and remember being a good sport is always the right way to play