New High School Tennis Programs

Alexis Ritzdorf (formerly Bartek) has been playing tennis for the better part of her life.

She excelled at Lincoln Southwest High School and Northwest Missouri State in singles and doubles. Since she graduated in 2014, she’s coached reserve tennis at Lincoln East High School and junior varsity tennis at Lincoln Southwest High School. Four of the Southwest Junior Varsity teams she coached were city champions at the end-of-the-year conference championship.

However, she has never been part of building up a brand new program from the ground up. Until now. She will be the new assistant girls’ tennis coach at Bennington High School.

“I am thrilled to be a part of building a new program and bringing tennis to the Bennington community,” she said. “Our girls’ season does not start until the spring of 2021, but we are making preparations now to have a successful program in the future.”

Among those preparations is a summer tennis camp, which has already seen a lot of interest from girls in the district.

Ritzdorf said she is excited to see how the camp goes, as well as bringing the new sport to the growing community. One where she and her husband recently moved, and will be teaching fourth grade at Heritage Elementary School.

“I'm looking forward to teaching and growing the game of tennis in Bennington,” she added. “I'm very passionate about teaching the game to beginning players and watching them advance throughout the season.  As a coach, it is my goal that my players improve their tennis game, but most importantly have fun!”