By Jamie Ward

For a copy of this story pick up the Aug. 22 issue of the Geauga County Maple Leaf. Call 440-285-2013 to subscribe.
Lost amid the large crowds, pep rallies and bright lights, the fanfare their more traditional athletic classmates enjoy, are the Chardon tennis players.
There are no locker rooms, no restrooms, no referees during these daytime matches. There are no stands, bleachers or concessions.
But none of that extra puff matters much to coaches Dan and Jenny Robertson, as they and their seniors keep building this modest program set by set.
"Hopefully we have a lot of excitement going on," said Robertson, head coach in his second season. His wife leads the junior varsity program.
There are nine additional Chardon players this season, including 10 freshmen, for a total of 22.
The youth camp ballooned from 17 in its first year to 85 this past summer.
"You have to start them off young and try to groundswell, getting people excited, getting people wanting to play," said Robertson, who lettered in tennis while in high school at Massillon.
Robertson credits his five seniors for leadership.
"They are girls I can get the little kids to really look up to," he said. "They're smart, they're good students, they play hard."
Hallie Kevern, senior co-captain with Lisa Poyar, said things use to be more lax.
"And tennis here at Chardon has never been taken as a huge deal," she said. "So we're trying to change that. We're trying to make it better and work harder and take the program to a new level."
"It gets a little annoying since everyone takes tennis as a joke," Poyar said. "They think we should be a club, even though we're out here working early in the morning every day of the week ."
"One of my fondest memories with that," Kevern added, "we were practicing with JV one day and we were running up a giant hill, and after we were done we were sweating and our hearts were racing and some girls felt like they were going to throw up, and that's when my coach said, 'If anyone ever tells you tennis isn't hard, tell them about this day.'"
A varsity tennis match is decided by seven players — three who play singles against their opponents, and two teams of doubles.
Of those matches, whichever team wins the best of five wins the match.
Junior Cassy Cicero plays first singles, the match for a team's top player, and defeated Wickliffe in a recent home match; Kevern played second singles; Poyar played third singles.
Emmy Staffileno and Sasha Pischal played first doubles; Katie Moore and Crosby Craddock played second doubles.
Overall, Chardon beat Wickliffe 3-2 behind the Moore/Craddock win after the match was tied 2-2.
Staffelino, a senior playing with Pischal, a freshman, likes the teamwork of doubles play. "It's a lot more interesting to watch how two people work together," she said, adding, "We're such a close-knit group of groups. We're like a big family."
Cicero began playing at a young age when her father, Jim, took her to the courts. She still hits with him on the weekends.
Now in her third year playing first singles, Cicero is more comfortable.
"It was really intimidating when you'd have to play matches as a sophomore," she said. "But now that I've played longer, it's not as scary to play."
The team finished 13-6 last season, in Robertson's first year, and second in the Premier Athletic Conference behind Geneva, a team considered the best in the area. Chardon will face Geneva again the first of two times this year on Aug. 24.
"We're working really hard to get the season off to a good start," Kevern said. "We're going to try and be undefeated this season. That's the ultimate goal."
The Robertsons are trying to build Chardon's program back up to past success, like when Stephen Rozek won a boys state championship in 2002.
Still, there are challenges.
Facilities are an issue, as the 22-member team has to practice on the three courts Chardon has.
Because of that, the team plays more matches on the road, at schools with bigger facilities.
And a $450 pay-to-play fee — which Robertson, a physics teacher at the high school for 25 years, called "outrageous" — seems steep given the program's paltry budget, consisting mostly of tennis balls.