In his first three county matches, Stephen Woody has gone 2-1 to help the Bruins stay undefeated at 3-0.
eroe@digitalsports.com
Most coaches would be a bit nervous naming a freshman the ace of a varsity team.
Most coaches would wonder if the player would be able to compete against the county’s best in only his first year.
Most coaches would blink, and give the spot to someone else.
But those coaches didn’t have Stephen Woody transfer into their program before this season for what is technically his freshman year at age 18.
Broadneck tennis coach Mike Hudson did.
“He mentioned this summer about coming here, and certainly I was delighted because I’d seen him play tennis at USTA tournaments and so forth,” said Hudson, who has coached the Bruins to back-to-back county championships. “Everybody likes Stephen so he’s really accepted so he’s coming in… and working so hard in practice, trying to become better... He’s a tremendous asset to the team.”
An 18-year-old freshman? The classification is because he was homeschooled until this year, and though he is set to graduate with the class of 2009 because he tested out of certain classes, technically he is a freshman.
While living in Calvert County, Woody was actually a wrestler at the club level for nine years before he discovered tennis. He wound up at the Severn Valley Club in Gambrills, where he worked stringing rackets. It was there he discovered his innate ability on the court, impressing coaches like Hudson in local club tennis matches.
Last year, he decided to move in with his sister on Shore Acres Road, landing himself in Broadneck. Come spring, Woody had won out the top spot on of the area’s most accomplished programs.
After seeing him win the second of his first three county matches on Tuesday, 6-1, 6-0, over South River’s Eric Anderson, Hudson was all smiles.
“Today, especially, I thought he volleyed really well and that’s something that he’s worked on and he got a chance to do it today. He looked really good,” said Hudson. “He has a very nice serve in his forehand and he volleys very well. Something he will continue to work on is his backhand… But that’s something that I’m not really worried about because I know how hard he works.”
Woody dropped his first match, 7-6, 6-4, to
Annapolis’ Morgan Joyce in the county opener just a week after competing in the state wrestling tournament for Broadneck.
He bounced back to win against
Arundel before helping the team down
South River, 8-1, so he's not letting that first loss get to him; he just looks forward to facing Joyce again.
“I’m still coming back from wrestling, so still trying to remember how to play,” said Woody. “You lose a little bit of timing but you pick it back up real quick.”
Before the advancing to states on the mats, Woody placed second in the 4A-3A East Region, compiling a 25-15 record in his first season wrestling in five years.
Despite having never competed at the high school level, he didn’t seem too surprised about his finish, which included one win at states. Actually, despite holding the No. 1 spot on the tennis squad, he sees himself as a more talented wrestler than tennis player.
“Sports has always come easy to me, [but wrestling] is just something I’ve done longer,” said Woody. “I wrestled for nine years, and I only played tennis for three-and-a-half. And wrestling runs in the family.”
It certainly does. Look no further than Annapolis High School senior Bubby Graham, a three-time state champion who wrapped up his final year with a 97-match win streak in one hand and a scholarship from American University in the other.
Woody’s sister, Nicole, a former Arundel standout, was the first girl to advance to the state finals, where she was a runner-up. Now, she is tops in the nation in her 97-pound weight class as a freshman at Oklahoma City University.
With that kind of background, it seemed academics, rather than athletics, would be the bigger hurdle facing the young man as he transferred into public school.
But a 3.88 grade point average seems to indicate otherwise. Woody said the toughest adjustment was actually the size of the student body. Last year, he had no classmates. This year, has 2,206 of them. But the change of scenery has been good, allowing him to become more outgoing.
“You’ve got to come face-to-face with a lot more people and talk a lot more. At home, I could just sit there and not talk to anybody,” said Woody, who is considering helping make a name for a young Division-II tennis program at Covenant College.
Though he will return for one more school year before officially graduating, he will turn 19 next month, making this season, Woody’s first, also his last. So what would make his only high school season a success?
“I want to win regions,” he said. “If I can remember to play… I think I can do it.”