By Ryan Bisesi
rbisesi@salisburypost.com
Salisbury’s Lewis Young wants to major in psychology at Roanoke College, where he will continue playing tennis next year.
Although his mental state is pretty good these days, with helping the highly ranked Hornets to another 2A Central Carolina Conference crown, the senior will follow his curiosity, which led him to tennis in the first place.
Now, he’s the No. 3 player on one of the top teams in the state while compiling a 16-2 record. It all started when Knox Middle started its program during Young’s seventh-grade year.
“I heard they were having a team and so I was like ‘why not?,’” Young said.
Roanoke, a Division III college with an enrollment of roughly 2,100 students in Salem, Virginia, will also collect Young’s teammate Alex Weant who signed with the Maroons’ basketball program. Young said he considered Division I schools Gardner-Webb and St. Francis in addition to D2 Catawba and Brevard. Weant committed to Roanoke after Young did in February.
Young noted the faster pace of the college game would call for some improvement in his game, specifically his net game and serve. He’s currently ranked in the top 100 in the state in the USTA rankings, about 50 spots better than his rank last year.
“I’m a baseliner so I need to work on coming in and being more aggressive,” Young said. “I need to improve my serve a lot because the college game is so fast and aggressive.”
For now, Young is enjoying another Hornets win another conference title and hopefully one more deep postseason run. Salisbury made it to the state semifinals last year before falling to Newton-Conover. The Hornets are primed for another playoff spurt this year with a 17-1 overall record and 11-0 in the CCC. Their only loss came to Statesville back in March.
“We have a lot of spirit and comradery and it’s a lot of fun,” Young said. “At the same time, we’re still working toward winning the state. It’s a good balance of hard work and having fun.”
Roanoke was 6-6 overall this season and 6-3 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
“It’s not like I’ll be No. 1 right away but I’ll at least get to start,” Young said. “It’s still a competitive team.”
“They have a good physchology program and everything seemed to fit.”
Salisbury won its last CCC match Wednesday 9-0 against East Davidson. The Hornets have won all their conference matches by a 9-0 final.