Vashon High School varsity tennis head coach Jake Dillon said last week after a Friday practice on a balmy afternoon at the Pirate courts that he will use a team of seven including lone senior Max Burnham, who is also a basketball player.

There will be five juniors, including Ty Lazarus, Eli Weston, Michael Butz, Josh Bacchus and David Salonen.

They will be configured to play three singles matches and two doubles matches in regularly-scheduled competition.

In addition, Dillon pointed out that the team as a whole has about 25 players, most of them freshmen and most of them beginners.

It bodes well, he said, for the future, that there are so many interested who could develop into players for the varsity in the coming years.

The team got to the districts last year, and has lost some seniors, but Dillon is optimistic about the coming season, although he also pointed out that many of the teams Vashon plays have club players who perform year-round.

They are recruited by such private schools as Charles Wright (Dillon calls that school Vashon’s chief rival) and Cascade Christian.