MSAE loads up for another final four run

Lawrence Eyre has always enforced performance-based goals as opposed to outcome-based goals to his Maharishi School tennis teams.

He stresses improvement and playing to ones potential, but suffice to say, the outcomes have worked out pretty well too.

And lucky for Eyre, he has an ultra-talented roster full of players who have bought in since joining the team as freshmen.

?We?re the smallest school in the state with a tennis team; we have to improve during the season faster than anyone else,? he said. ?The guys are willing to do it. They?ve done it before, and it has become sort of the corporate culture.?

The culture also involves playing tennis well into the month of May and ending up in the Class 1A final four, which MSAE has now done the last six years running. After settling for runner-up honors the past two seasons, Eyre returns a team with heaping amounts of varsity experience that includes five players who have played for a state title.

Four of those players were on last year?s second-place team, and they have hit the ground running with furious practice matches this spring.

Sam Arsanjani really took Eyre?s improvement mantra to heart, and has made a big leap from his sophomore to junior seasons. After playing No. 4 singles the past two years, Arsanjani has won challenge matches over the incumbent Thomas Weiss and is now slated to play No. 1 for the Pioneers.

?We?ve had a lot of fierce competition early on, and Sam has spent the most time working on his game since last year, so he?s made a big jump,? said Eyre. ?The fact that we?ve had this competition at every rung is exactly what we want. That?s what a team needs.?

The early season shuffle will only make Weiss ? also a junior ? that much tougher to handle at No. 2. Derek Thatcher is back for his senior season at No. 3 and Raphael Gelfand moves up to No. 4 after a tremendous freshman year in 2010.

And if anyone wanted more competition, another intense challenge match took place that secured Solaris Nite?s spot at No. 5 and positioned Brenton Schwartz at No. 6. Nite steps into the spotlight as the team?s lone freshman while Schwartz is back after being a part of the 2009 team that took second place and playing on the fringe of a varsity spot last year.

After some finagling with the doubles lineup in the early going last season, Eyre now seems to have it nailed down. And much of the credit for that can go to Weiss and Thatcher forming a pair that finished all the way up in third place at the state doubles tournament.

The duo will play No. 1 doubles while Arsanjani will team up with Gelfand at No. 2 and leave Nite to play with Schwartz at No. 3.

The lineup figures to provide another stack of wins to add to Eyre?s record at MSAE ? something teams around the area and around the state are certainly aware of. The Pioneers have played with a target on their back in nearly every one of Eyre?s 24 seasons, and with the talent coming back, 2011 will be no different.

?A lot of teams around here are probably looking to knock us off. People will be trying to do that every time we play, so we?ll see how much we can improve because we know we need to,? he said.

Again, improvement is the focus and Eyre is perfectly fine with letting the chips fall as they may.

?We know a lot of things are out of our control. You never know what kind of transfers there will be, what foreign exchange students will do or if there will be any injuries,? he said. ?Staying healthy and staying motivated to make the best of every practice and every competition is our commitment. When we do that, the banners, trophies and medals come along with it.?

MSAE was as good as ever with a 9-0 shutout of West Burlington in the season opener Tuesday afternoon. The Pioneers will now get set for the always-tough Warrior Invitational Saturday at Cedar Rapids Washington.