Sports
BHS tennis teams battle conditions at tourney
Monday, 24 September 2012 by Grayson Edds
While the Tiger Tennis team knew they were up for a challenge when they attended the Abilene Tournament, Coach Kyle Larson said he was impressed with the results from the team and the players even though they lost their first two matches.
Their first match of the tournament was against Abilene Cooper, who beat them 10-2, followed by another loss to Midland, who beat them 10-4.
"Overall I was proud to see how we did considering we were missing five of our players, and to see some of these youngsters get thrown into situations they hadn't yet played in and they stepped in," Larson said. "The high was 106 degrees on Friday, and I can't say enough about them. They fought hard. All the coaches talked about how well they composed themselves with the heat and that many matches. I couldn't have asked for more."
Saturday's games, however, they returned to the courts ready to play. They won against Abilene High JV 10-2 in their first match of the day.
"Abilene High Varsity is a top 5 or top 10 team in the state," Larson said. "For their varsity team to be ranked that high, they played their JV in the tournament as well. That goes to show how good their JV team really is, because they put that much faith in their JV team to represent the school."
Saturday afternoon, the Tigers Tennis team played their first out-of-state match against Hobbs, New Mexico and won 10-4.
"Tara Donaho (fr.) won every one of her singles matches," Larson said. "She played really well. She had a couple of tough matches, one against Abilene Cooper and a tough match against a girl from Midland, among others. It was the first match where I saw her have to bite down because she was down in the beginning of the match and made a comeback. It was impressive to watch."
The No. 3 doubles girls team, Mayra Perez (so.) and Abigail Kendall (fr.) also had an impressive win against cooper, he said.
One of the boys who really stood out during the tournament was senior Ryan Jones.
"He did pretty well," Larson said. "He's been playing No. 2, but played No. 1 during the tournament. He really represented himself well for the team, did a good job at stepping up in that. He did good as a team captain as well, holding the team together and making sure we all cheered each other on. He's a good asset for us to have. He wants to make sure we have the team concept."
The Tiger Tennis team is now ranked 9-2 for the season and will travel to Anderson High on Friday to play their last pre-district game before their match against Ellison on Sept. 18 at home.
