Another late update to our Hixson Tennis Season. Whew, what a year we have had!
The Boys made history for our Program by winning the first Team Region ever against Boyd Buchanan. We won that match relatively easily, with all five of our boys winning their singles matches and not needing to play doubles.
Their run was not over yet, as a week later we traveled to Signal Mountain to battle the Eagles for a chance to go to Murfreesboro. Signal Mountain, you will recall, beat us at home earlier in the Season to hand our boys their first loss of the season. The format for the Sectional battle (five singles and two doubles matches) favored our boys, and they prevailed 4-2. Another first for our program: Sectional Champs and we were on our way to Murfreesboro as State Semi-Finalists!
We had our chances against Christ Presbyterian Academy out of Nashville, but it was not to be. We took an early 3-0 lead in singles, but lost the final two singles matches at #2 and #5-- both of which were three set affairs. Still, I liked our chances, as we only needed one match in doubles to advance to the State Final. Our #2 doubles team, lost quickly, 3-8. It was up to our #1 doubles team. This match went back and forth and finally the two teams were even at eight games apiece. Hixson managed to stave off an early match point against, and were even on serve with their own match point, but the CPA team found away to win that point and closed out the match two points later, 6-8.
As I said on Facebook, it is easy to lose when your team gets blown out, but tougher to swallow when you know that you are every bit as good as the players on the other side of the net. This one came down to experience. The CPA boys have been to this tournament at least twice before. They lost in the Semis in 2012, and lost in the final in 2013. They used every bit of that experience to find a way to win against our team. Still, I am so proud of this team and all that they accomplished. I know that they are still a very young group of players with a lot of room for improvement. I fully expect this team to get back to Murfreesboro before it is all said and done.
The road back to the State Tournament, however, is a long and hard one. I'm only losing one player from this squad, but he happens to be one of my most productive players, senior Kevin Nguyen. Kevin went 5-0 in the #4 Singles position and 10-3 in the #1 and #2 Doubles spots. That is a lot of wins I need from someone else next year. The Wildcats will NEED to work hard all year in order to get back into this position. I can work with them this summer, but once August comes around, they will be on their own to keep practicing. Official practice starts February 16, 2015. They had better be ready!
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