Clark Shannon ’17 lines up at the baseline with his doubles teammate Pierre Craig ’16 just 10 steps in front. The opposing Highland Park tennis player stands at the other end of the long green court. He bounces the ball twice in front of his left foot. Winding up, his rackets collides with the ball before it zips into the net. “Fault One” the referee yells from his box above the court. Repeating his process, the HP tennis player zips the next ball over the net, taking the point and the game soon thereafter.
The Jesuit Tennis team has played two matches recently against Highland Park and Irving High School. Jesuit lost its first match against the highly respected Highland Park tennis team. Losing by the score of 15-1, the tennis team simply could not repeat last year’s magic in the Regional tournament against their foe. The loss was hard, but Jesuit tennis quickly bounced back just 4 days later, shutting out the Irving tennis team, annihilating them by the score of 14-0.
Although Jesuit lost to Highland Park, the number 1 doubles team of Hayden Kissee ’17 and Campbell Frost ’16 still managed to remain undefeated in their match. Unfortunately, the rest of the team simply could not do the same against the defending UIL State Champions. Shannon, one of the team leaders, commented, “It was a tough match, but the score doesn’t show the whole story. We had a couple tough breaks that ended up going Highland Park’s way, breaks that just as easily could have gone to us and then this would be a different story.” Head Coach Paul McDaniel echoed Shannon’s thoughts, remarking, “It was a lot tougher match than the score indicated. I have no hesitation in praising the effort of our guys.”
Luckily, just a few days later, the Jesuit team was able to come back from their unfortunate loss to topple Irving. Carlos Riddle ’17 mentioned that “after the disappointing loss to Highland Park, we felt like we had something to prove. The team really came together and we got right back on track, playing like we had been all season.” Kissee also seemed to feel the same way about the game saying, “It was good to get another win under our belt and head into this upcoming game against Lake Highlands with confidence.”
The team’s next scheduled match was against Lake Highlands Sept. 18.
