Aces: Sabers face tough opening week

The Souhegan High School boys tennis team got a win over Milford under its belt on Monday.

Now the Sabers get to face a couple of teams that coach John Kilgore believes will be in the running for Class I title this season.

On Wednesday, Souhegan goes on the road for the first time to face Pelham. Then the Sabers return to Jasper Valley on Friday to host Hollis/Brookline.

The reason Kilgore expects both to be in the mix? Experience.

“Pelham and Hollis/Brookline bring back full squads,” he said. “They’re the same team with more experience. Hanover, they lost four seniors, so who knows. But they grow them up there as needed.”

The Sabers, who lost to Hanover in the title match last year, have plenty of returning players of their own. But they did lose their No. 2 and 3 players from 2009.

“It’s always hard moving people up,” Kilgore said. “Moving one notch is easy, moving two positions up is a different level. There are some adjustments at three and four this year. Five and six are ready to come in, it’s just that three and four were closer to our one and two last year, now they’re a little closer to our five or six.”

It would be hard for anyone entering the lineup to be close to Souhegan’s No. 1 and 2 players. Nishon Radhakrishnan was the Sabers’ No. 1 last year, but played at No. 2 on Monday because he fell in a challenge match to teammate Sam Protzmann during practice. Protzmann played at No. 1 against Milford, but Kilgore expects the two to be neck-and-neck all season.

“They just had their challenge match and Sam took the No. 1 spot from Nishon,” Kilgore said. “They’ll do that every two weeks.”