Canyon Lake Juniors take over pickleball courts

Almost 20 youths ranging in age from nine to 17 heeded the invitation to learn more about pickleball and stormed the Canyon Lake Pickleball Courts at the Canyon Lake Pickleball Club’s first junior clinic of the year.

“It was a perfect day weatherwise to play,” the club’s Steve Libring said. “The parents even got into action. The turnout was great. All four courts were full. We had 32 new people who learned pickleball, a game for the entire family.”

The clinic held challenges and competition as part of the method to teach the participants how to play the game.

“The clinic not only taught the basic skills and rules of the game, but it also taught paddle control,” Steve said. “There was a challenge to see which juniors could bounce the ball on the paddle the most times without dropping it.”

Five of the participants in the challenge reached 150 consecutive hits.

“We had to stop them as we learned from last year,” Steve said. “Last year‘s champ hit 1,148 hits before we could see she wasn’t going to miss.”

A sudden death speed challenge with winners in two divisions were Brayden Engwicht, 11, for the younger division and Natalia Alvarado, 15, for the older division.

Upon the completion of the lessons