The tennis teams participate in the final tournament in Allen on Friday and Saturday before their district tournaments begin.

“It’s one of the best tournaments in Texas,” head coach Adam Cherry said. “There’s last year’s 5A state champion Highland Park, 6A state champs Plano West, as well as Allen, Southlake Carroll, Lubbock, Amarillo and a lot of other tough teams.”

The Allen Tournament will prepare the team for future contests with district implications.

“Next week we have a district seeding meeting and then the week after we play Tuesday and Wednesday, April 4th and 5th in the district tournament,” Cherry said. “That’s kind of the finale unless you get first or second in either event and make it to regionals.”

Junior Samantha Hayward aims to get a leg up on the district competition through the Allen Tournament.

“[The tournament] is going to be really tough since Allen, Highland Park, and several other good teams will be there,” Hayward said. “Hopefully we’ll do well, but it’s really more just for us to see where we stand with Highland Park and learn what we need to work on to beat them.”

Bolstered by facing tough schools in their past tournaments, the Leopard tennis program is growing its game each match.

“We have gone up against some tough schools recently,” junior Brandon Su said. “Each time we get a chance to compete with good players from other schools, we improve our mental and physical games to reach a higher level of tennis.”

By facing some strong teams this week in Allen, it gives the teams a chance to scout the squads they might face if they make it to regionals.

“The tournament is going to give us good seeding information,” Cherry said. “So for instance, if we make it to regionals, beating some of these teams will help us as we’ll see many of them at the regional tournament. So if we beat them we’ll have results that will help us get seeded higher, because usually in districts and regionals they’ll seed the top four teams, and after that the others are just kind of placed in the bracket.”