The Tiger tennis team pulled out a first place victory on the both the boys and girls side at their district tournament held April 5-6 at the home courts. This is the 27th time time consecutively that the tennis team has been the district champions on both sides. The team had four first place finishes in boys singles, boys doubles, girls doubles and mixed doubles, only lacking a first place finish in the girls singles division.

“I’m very proud of the way I played [at district] because I have a tendency to underestimate the other team,” sophomore Tirzah Bailey said. “Usually, that makes me slack off a bit, but this tournament I kept the intensity and didn’t let up until the match was over. Both my partner and I put the ball away when we got the chance, which is something we usually both struggle with.”

Some players had strong third place wins, but only the top two finishers in district get to advance to regionals.

“My partner [Jebin Justin] and I lost in the semifinals to a team from Hallsville,” junior Jaxson Allen said. “It was really upsetting because it was a very close match and we had to go to a third set. I wish we could have made it to regionals, but we pulled out a great win for third place in our last match at district.”

A large part of the team will be headed to regionals on April 17-18 in Allen to compete on the next level.

“I expect the teams we will see at regionals will be more experienced and therefore tougher competition,” Bailey said. “I’m preparing my working on all my weaknesses during practice and telling my partner Elizabeth to do the same. We just want to lower the lack of error and keep working on our volleys, strokes, movement and serves. We made it to the semifinals last spring season so we want to get past that this year.”

The older players on the team were excited to keep the district win going and are ready to play at their last regional tournament.

“I’m really happy that we ended up winning first in the girls and boys division to keep the streak going, especially since it’s my senior year,” senior Cullen Schoen said. “Hopefully we keep up the good work at regionals and have some of our players make it to state.”