Senior Justin Ukeje leaps to the right, crossing the green and red court, to return the fuzzy green ball. His racket barely reaches the projectile ball in time to send it flying back down to the far corner of his opponent’s domain. He jumps back to the center and tries to anticipate where his next encounter will be.

Ukeje, the No. 1 choice for varsity, led the team to place third in the district for the 2015 season. Ukeje had to beat out the rest of his teammates in practice every week to maintain this rank for the entirety of the season.

“All I had to do was keep playing my game to the best of my ability to take down whatever challenge was ahead of me,” Ukeje said. “I felt that many people looked up to me, so I tried to take what I did on the court and help apply it to their games.”

Over the course of four years, while helping to better those around him, Ukeje has grown in the company of not only his teammates, but his friends.

“I will miss my teammates the most. I’ve become close with a lot of them,” Ukeje said. “I liked going to practice and just chilling and having fun. It didn’t feel like a practice with all [of them].”

Ukeje will pursue tennis in college though he has not undecided on which university he will attend. He views it as an opportunity to further his game and continue to gain new experiences.

“As of right now I think there are many universities I could play at,” Ukeje said. “I feel the opportunity is great to grow even more as a player and a person.”

Ukeje’s mainly focuses in tennis on his growth and the bettering of one’s self. This has been evident in both his improvement as a player and his drive to improve those around him.

“The only thing I wish I could’ve done differently is help other people craft and develop their games more,” Ukeje said. “Other than that I’m pretty happy with my high school career.”