The Lincoln East boys tennis team has been off to a great start, led by first year head coach Cristopher Stock. Stock will be taking over for Jeff Hoham, the longtime coach of 31 years, who brought in 9 state titles to the program. In their first few invitationals, East has showed some early signs of success, taking first place at the Pius invitational, and second at the East High invitational. At the Pius invitational, senior Connor Vandewege took the crown for No. 1 singles, after beating out the state’s top ranked singles player, Papillion-La Vista’s Ethan Neal. “This season four out of our eight players are seniors. We’d really like to see how much they can improve with this being their last season here at East,” exclaimed Coach Stock. “So far we’ve been very pleased with the improvements being made.” The main emphasis of the practices this year have been serving. Percentage is something that the team would like to see an improvement in, and so far things have been looking up for the Spartan boy’s tennis season. Monday, September 17 brings the Monarch invitational hosted by the Papillion-La Vista Monarchs. A plethora of Lincoln, Omaha, and other schools form surrounding areas will be in attendance, as East will have a true chance to broadcast how they will be able to compete in the later months of the season. When asked about the influential meet, Coach Stock said, “we’d love to bring an intense attitude with us, keeping the feet moving is a big factor, but most important is keeping our focus.” The meet will begin early Monday morning at 8:00 am.