Wednesday, February 15, 2017

2017 Middlebury Panthers-It's Go Time

Gotta love that Circle


Panther Family,

Welcome back to coverage of the Middlebury Men’s Panther Tennis Team. Today is an exciting day as we kick off our first team practice here in Nelson arena. There has been a lot of anticipation on the ends of both players and coaches for this day to come, now that it is finally here it is time to get to work.

The team is lead by our two senior captains Allen Jackson and Hamid Derbani. Timo Van Der Geest, William (Will) De Quant, and Kyle Schlanger make up our junior class. We have three sophomores; Lubomir (Lubo) Cuba, Peter Martin, and Cole Sutton, with our final members being the freshman class of Aleksandr (Alex) Samets, Alexander (Alex) Vanezis, and Weston Brach. One addition that we are going to add to this year’s blog is our “meet the player” section. With every blog post we will feature one panther student-athlete in efforts for you the fans to get to know our team.

This weeks "Meet the Player":

Senior Captain Allen Jackson

Name: Allen Jackson
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Class: Senior
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 170 lbs
Major: Economics
Favorite tennis player growing up and why: Andy Roddick. He made tennis fun to watch and had a personality.
Favorite movie: The Dark Knight Rises.
Favorite food: Chicken Parmesan at Proctor Dining Hall.
Favorite Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor: Cookie Dough.
If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you go and why: Bora Bora. It is paradise.
Why you chose Middlebury College: To win a National Championship and to catch the Middlebury camel.
Favorite Middlebury tennis moment thus far: My battles with teammate Ari Smolyar my freshman year.

Allen is a 5th year senior and one of the biggest leaders we have on our team. He has started in multiple seasons for the panthers but suffered a hip injury prior to last season which ended in a red shirt and challenging surgery. Through amazing determination, patience, and hard work he is back and playing for the panthers this his final season. He leads by example on court with constant commitment to improving and constant commitment to his teammates. We could not be more fortunate to have him leading this 2017 Panther Team. 

We would like you to be aware of all the social media outlets we will have this season covering our men’s tennis team. You can follow us on Facebook at: https://facebook.com/middmtennis/ On Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/middmtennis/ And on twitter at: https://twitter.com/middtennis?lang=en For our schedule, updates, and scores go to our Middlebury College Athletics website: http://athletics.middlebury.edu/sports/mten/index.

We would also like to make everyone aware of an alumni event that we will be hosting the weekend of April 8th and 9th. We will be hosting two very strong NESCAC competitors that weekend (Williams & Tufts), and would love a huge turnout to get our amazing alumni together. Keep in mind that this is just a save the date, specific details will follow.

Without further ado we welcome you to the 2017 Middlebury Men’s Panther Tennis Season. Our season opener will be a home match against Bates College on March 11th at 9am.
As always a major thanks goes out to all those who consistently support our program in so many ways. Now let the games begin...


Sincerely,

Middlebury Men’s Coaching Staff