After seven tournaments and a handful of dual matches, the tennis season is about to come to an end. District play begins Monday, as the Leopards head to McKinney to try to qualify for Regionals.
“I’m hoping to get 5 to 7 kids qualify,” head coach Adam Cherry said. “In order to qualify, they would have to either win Districts or come in second.”
The road to the next level may be easier for some as four doubles teams are got a three seed or better.
“All the seeding for the brackets went according to plan for the most part,” Cherry said. “We had a couple surprises in which brackets were more stacked than others, but overall we got at least one team seeded top five in each of the brackets.”
Both Leopard teams participating in girls doubles have a chance to make it to Regionals, as they received the first and third seeds.
Sophomore Anne Reyna and freshman Brittani Brooks paired up together, and have had the most successful results in the previous tournaments. They will head into Districts coming off a first place finish in the Frisco tournament.
“This season has gone really well for us,” Reyna said. “We’ve been able to pull a few upsets and we are really looking forward to competing at districts and hopefully advancing beyond that.”
Juniors Katie Burkhart and Autumn Keefer will also compete in girls doubles and have expectations going forward after a consolation win in the Frisco tournament.
“The goal at the beginning of every season is winning state,” Keefer said. “We are trying to accomplish this goal one match at a time and keeping that mentality helped us place in a couple tournaments this season and hopefully it will carry us to Regionals and eventually to State.”
To prepare for Districts the schedule included some of the best 4A and 5A tournaments in the area.
“By playing tougher competition early in the season, kids can see what they can expect to be up against in the later rounds of District and all of Regionals and really just work on improving their game,” Cherry said.
The team overall has not fared as well in these tournaments as they have in previous seasons, even though they played similar ones as a 3A team.
“The battle for me this year has been getting more court time for the kids,” Cherry said. “I have so many that are pulled in so many directions with other sports and extracurricular activities that they aren’t practicing nearly as much as they need to.”
Furthermore, dedication to the program has steadily declined.
“I don’t think we have enough kids participating in other programs anymore or willing to stay after practice to hit,” Cherry said. “All the other years kids were wanting to practice, and this year that hasn’t happened as much.”
While that may present difficulties against tennis powerhouses like Highland Park, the teams in the district will pose problems as well.
“There’s four pretty dominant schools in our district: us, McKinney North, Denison, and Sherman,” Cherry said. “Those four teams got every seed in every draw so I still have high expectation for the team going into the District tournament.”
