OhioTennisZone.com Interview
TUESDAY, APRIL
Recognizing Ursuline's Greg Morgione
While the season is in (serious) doubt, there is little doubt that it is time to recognize several of Ohio's best senior players. The first player to be recognized this spring is Ursuline's Greg Morgione. Morgione finished second last year in singles at States in Division II, and Ursuline finished fourth in the final OTZ State Team Rankings.
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Ursuline's Greg Morgione at '19 Dist - Click to enlarge |
Morgione is an OTZ-approved math-science guy. He has taken eight AP classes and he has enjoyed AP Statistics and AP Computer Science (with the Python programming language) more than the others.
Morgione plans to major in finance at nearby Youngstown State where his father, Greg, is an attorney. As a huge employee benefit, YSU provides its employees with free tuition for their children. Thanks to several academic scholarships, Morgione will also get most (if not all) of his room and board expenses covered. Morgione's mother, Kristin, is a Canfield middle school special education teacher. His sister, Anna, is a sophomore at Ursuline and she reached Districts in tennis last fall. His brother, William, is in seventh grade. William also plays tennis.
Morgione had planned to compete in a few USTA tournaments to prepare for the high school season, but those were canceled due to COVID-19. He primarily plays tennis during the high school season rather than year-round. He normally does play in the Northeast Qualifier and at the Midwest Closed but he does not plan to play in those tournaments this year. "I like competing for my school more than anything. I sense I am not as motivated for USTA events compared to school events and it results in me playing better for my school. I'm not sure if it's because I can get recognition for it, or that I love my school." Youngstown State does not have a club team so this season may be his last hurrah in competitive tennis.
Much of our conversation dealt with how Morgione was faring with "at home" school during the COVID-19 shutdown. He shared that "Most of my classmates do not like it at all and they find it almost impossible to learn online." Morgione, on the other hand, has adapted to it quite well. He intermixes studies with exercise and he added, "It leaves me with more time to do things I like it because I'm good with managing my time. I get a list of assignments and then I get the entire day to finish it. Some of my friends sleep in until 2:00pm, then mess around, and then they have to work until 11:00pm every night. I get up early and complete half of the homework and then work out and that refreshes my mind so that when I go back to it in an hour or so later, I'm more productive." Morgione felt that after experiencing online school he would be more apt to taking online classes in college, especially for the elective courses.
As for Morgione's tennis goals this year is, "My goals are/were to get my team back to the State Final Four over anything else. It was my fault last year that we were not at full strength on the last day of the season and that’s what I thought of most during the offseason. I never really took a huge leadership role before, but I was trying my best this year to get everyone locked in for what we could accomplish."
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Ursuline's Greg Morgione at 2018 Dist - Click to enlarge |
After an extremely difficult Saturday at States, he is; however, a little hard on himself with the above comment. Both Morgione and Wellington's Trevor Ball ended up being heat casualties after their semi-final match. Morgione said that his match with Ball was one of his best. "Trevor was up 5-2 and I was serving love-40." Gaining confidence as the crowd grew, Morgione came back and won that set 7-6. Even though Ball won the second set, 5-7, he had no energy for the third and Morgione won it 6-0. Neither Ball nor Morgione could compete in their next match. Morgione spent the night in the hospital getting re-hydrated so that he could get back on the court on Sunday for the State Team Tournament.
Morgione plays an all-court game, but he stated that "I like my backhand more than any shot, especially on the run when I'm open stanced. It flows better for me compared to my forehand which sometimes is glitchy. I think too much on my forehand, so I actually prefer when someone tries to attack the backhand." Morgione is a TennisRecruiting.net two-star.
As for the obligatory, "What do you use on OhioTennisZone" question which forces players to actually get on and use OhioTennisZone, Morgione responded, "I always keep my eyes on the rankings on the right side of the page. I also do like seeing the scores of every match on a team's profile. I don't use it to scout for my own match, but I use it to get a better understanding of the team we are about to play."
As for his service projects, "Our tennis team has been volunteering with Buddy Up Tennis and did that periodically in the offseason. I am in various service clubs at Ursuline, but it's more about volunteering for single events throughout the year and rather than doing ongoing projects."
In addition to tennis, Morgione played basketball prior to incurring a knee injury during his sophomore year. Last season was his first tennis season at full-strength from the injury. He still plays some soccer. He prefers watching basketball over anything else including tennis. He also uses Twitter (@greg_morgione), TikTok, and Snapchat.
Ursuline Coach Kent Blacksher gets his team together once a week via Zoom. Through a shared contact, Coach Blacksher, even got Paul Anacone to talk with the boys to help keep them motivated. Coach Blacksher also shared this about Morgione, "Greg is the type of player every coach wishes they had. Not just because he's an elite athlete, but because of the way he handles his business. Hard worker, fantastic teammate, incredible intelligence".
Let's hope that we get to see him play this season.
