Date: August 26-27, 2005

Date: August 26-27, 2005

The RHS tennis team found itself outmatched in the Midway Team Tennis Tournament on August 26-27, losing all three matches played. The tournament was held at the Midway Tennis Courts.

The Rockets, with only five returnees on the varsity squad, played Harker Heights and Brownwood in the first two rounds and fell to both teams by the identical score of 9-10. The matches could not have been any closer, with each contest being decided by the last match on court. The final match of the tournament was against Van, a perennial participant in the 3A state team tournament in the spring. Falling behind 2-5 in the doubles, the RHS squad never was able to recover and lost the match 5-14.

Highlights for the weekend included:

· Freshmen duo of Tucker Mueck/Daniel Trayler going 3-0 in doubles and both were undefeated in singles

· Ryan Moll and Skylar Stillwagon each going 3-0 in singles while losing only 1 doubles match in a 3rd set tiebreaker

· Anna Cox/David Kennemore winning 2-out-of-3 mixed doubles matches (one in a 3rd set tiebreaker)

· Courtney Bowles picking up her very first varsity win against Brownwood in the #6 slot



Coach’s Comments:



Overall I was really pleased with our effort against both Harker Heights and Brownwood. We were in those matches up to the final point and the kids played their hearts out. Against Van I was a little disappointed with our competitiveness. I feel that we didn’t play with any passion and were not playing inspired tennis like we need to. Most of that passion and drive comes with experience and our lack of varsity match experience was really evident.

What encourages me the most is the improvement that I saw in several of the young ladies that are playing varsity for the first time. A few of them are starting to understand what is needed to play at this level and I think that we’ll continue to see improvement in their games.