FRUITPORT – The Fruitport boys tennis team will not post any shutouts this season.

It’s just a matter of simple math.

To have a full lineup in all eight flights, a team needs at least 12 players on the roster (four singles players and eight doubles players). The Trojans head into the season with only eight guys on the roster, so they will have to forfeit every match at No. 3 and No. 4 doubles.

“This is one of the struggles that happens in boys tennis,” said head coach Brad Busscher about the small roster. “We’ll just kind of deal with it and do the best job that we can.

“In-match performance will be looked at more, rather than attempting to beat other teams. Within that, you want to see growth and improvement.”

The brighter news is related to the team’s experience. While Fruitport is short on numbers, it has seven players back from last season, and they all gained valuable court time that will help them win more matches this season.

The singles flights are set, with four players hungry for success – sophomores Sebastian Sweet and Remy Parker and seniors Shane Brosnan and Eli Puls.

Puls, who played doubles last year, collected the Trojans’ only two victories in a season-opening tournament in Holland on Saturday.

Sweet and Parker will lead the way in the top two singles flights, just like last season.

While both took their share of losses as freshmen last fall, Coach Busscher is hoping that trial by fire will pay off, this season and beyond.

“It was a tough season for both of them,” he said about Sweet and Parker. “They’re only sophomores so they played in the top two spots as freshmen. We’re hoping it translates into a much better brand of tennis this year.”

On the doubles side, junior Kaleb Brege, sophomore Jackson Yandell and sophomore Dominik Kooy return to the lineup from last season while senior Bryce Baugh will join the fold.

With only two doubles teams, their success will be crucial if the Trojans hope to win any dual matches. Fruitport will be able to compete for six of the eight possible points (the winners of each flight gets a point for their team), so even if all the Trojan singles players won on any given night, at least one of the doubles teams would have to prevail to secure a team victory. If a singles player loses, the doubles teams would need to sweep.

“We’re looking at some combinations,” Busscher said about the doubles teams. “Jackson will probably be at No. 1 doubles, and we’ll see who will fill in the other spots. We want to do as well as possible and will try to put together two doubles teams as strong as possible.”

Busscher expects his Trojans to be far more competitive than last year in each of the six filled flights.

They worked a lot on fundamental skills last year. They will be hunting victories this fall.

“I expect a high compete level,” the coach said. “We won’t necessarily have to focus as much on skill development as we did last year. It will be more kind of strategy and match scheming. It will be more about the mental part of tennis, and I think that will be our biggest improvement.”

One plus for the Trojans is that they will no longer compete in the tough O-K Blue conference, where they went winless in dual matches last season. They have shifted to the O-K Silver and will have a new set of opponents – Kelloggsville, Godwin Heights, Comstock Park, Belding, Hopkins, NorthPointe Christian and Calvin Christian.

“In the O-K Blue it was a different mindset,” Busccher said. “You wanted to see growth and improvement. We’re gunning for a win, and we know with the new conference we will have different opponents and there will be different challenges this season.”