WACO – The Thrall varsity tennis team competed in the Texas Tennis Coaches Association 2A and Under State Team Tennis Tournament this past weekend, March 10-11, in Waco, and came away with the fourth-place prize.
Thrall competed hard and showed they deserved to be in the mix, and even though they came up a little short in the rankings, players are proud of their performance as a team.
The tournament started out with Thrall facing Christoval in a tightly contested match.
The two teams played 13 matches against each other, with Thrall gaining the edge by winning the last two.
Those two wins gave Thrall their sixth and seventh wins of the match, and allowed them to advance to the next round.
Thrall went into the next round with a newfound sense of confidence as they matched up against San Saba.
Thrall only dropped two sets in this matchup, while winning another seven sets to continue their journey. Thrall then set their sights on Sterling City with a chance to advance to the championship round on the line.
With the Tigers on the hunt, they attempted to satisfy their hunger for the championship by defeating Sterling City and taking on Sonora for the championship.
Thrall started the match a little rough, and the boys’ doubles pairing of Brady Burlison and Payton Gilmore lost their first match of the tournament.
Ethan Dahl and Casen Sledge were right after Burlison and Gilmore, and got the win back to even up the first to seven series at one set for each team.
Next was the girls’ doubles pairings of Aubrey Shuttles and Julie Crabb, who picked up another win for Thrall to give them a 2-1 edge in their semi-final matchup. But Sterling City responded with a win of their own again evening things up at 2-2.
Thrall would recapture the lead thanks to Steven Walker and Kinley Hoffman in the mixed doubles group. Sterling City did not have a team available to compete, so the victory was awarded to Thrall.
Heading into the singles competition and holding a 3-2 lead in the match, Thrall was only four-wins away from punching their ticket. The boys’ singles sets started with Gilmore avenging the opening loss in doubles by picking up a huge win for Thrall.
However, Thrall’s win streak would end there as Sterling City would win the next three matches to take a 5-4 lead in the match. In the girls’ singles matches, Thrall knew their backs were against the wall and had to push back. They did just that as Shuttles picked up a win for Thrall to even up the match yet again. Sterling City responded by putting them only one victory away from victory.
Sarah Laurence was not going to let her team go down without a fight, in the 12th game out of 13 she grabbed a dominant win for her team setting up an exciting final matchup. Elena Garcia stepped up for Thrall, and with a chance to go to the finals on the line, she played her heart out.
In a best of three, the final game went all the way to the third set and, unfortunately, Thrall’s run came to an end by a score of 7-6 with Sterling City advancing.
