A dynasty is quickly growing in Amarillo as San Jacinto Christian Academy girls tennis team won their third straight team title at the TAPPS Class 2A state tournament on Wednesday and Thursday at the Waco Regional Tennis Center.
The Lady Patriots tallied 19.5 points to outpace All Saints Episcopal School out of Lubbock, who finished with 15.5 points for the title.
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“It’s an amazing thing to have something this rare,” San Jacinto tennis coach James Wells said. “To get enough girls out of district to state and get enough points to win the title is a testament to our kids during this run and the depth we have had.”
Leading the way for the Lady Patriots was the team of senior Harli Brabham and junior Blayne Robison. After skating through their first three matches only losing three total games, the duo captured their third straight state title by taking down Addy Dally and Emily White from All Saints in a tremendous finals match. The teams split the first two sets with each winning by an identical 6-3 score.
That set up a third set super tiebreak where the first team to ten points with a two-point margin is declared the winner. After jumping out to a sizable lead in the tiebreaker, the area netters found themselves down 10-9 and facing match point. With their backs against the wall, they even the scored at ten all and racked up the next two points for a thrilling 12-10 tiebreak win and another state gold.
“It’s such a rarity to pull off a state title three straight,” Wells said. “I couldn’t be prouder of them and how they battled back to take the title.”
Sophomore Skyla Brabham and junior Alayna Daniel tried to make it an all San Jacinto finals in girls doubles. The pair won a hard-fought quarterfinals match, 5-7, 6-3, (8) over Naomi Sell and Mai Shepherd from Lubbock Kingdom Prep. However, Dally and White took them down in the semifinals, 6-2, 6-2, as the duo captured bronze.
Marlee Brooks picked up some valuable points for the Lady Patriots as the sophomore won a first-round match against Robin Marin of Allen Academy-Bryan, 6-4, 3-6, (7) before falling in the quarterfinals to Emersyn Cross of All Saints, 6-0,6-3.
Another area athlete, Paige Weinheimer of Holy Cross Catholic Academy, also grabbed a first-round win by upsetting Taylor Tompkins of Austin Waldorf School-Austin, 6-1, 6-1, before dropping a quarterfinal match to Daniela Villamil of Alcuin School Dallas in a tight 6-2, 7-5 battle.
On the boy’s side, the Patriots grabbed silver behind All Saints with 12.5 points. Zephan Morgan led the way as the junior cruised to the finals only dropping six games, but the highly touted Noah Ward of Bracken Christian sat between him and a state title. Despite falling 6-1, 6-1, the score was not indicative of how the match went as Morgan battled throughout the match. Wells noted that “Morgan has raised his game to an amazing level and really worked hard to improve his singles game after grabbing gold in doubles last year”.
Morgan’s teammate, Kai Moody, grabbed an opening round win over Ben Waterman of Summit Christian Academy-Cedar Park, 6-1, 6-3 before falling to Jacob Moss of All Saints, 6-2, 6-3.
Holy Cross Catholic Academy senior Peter Weinheimer was an easy first round winner, 6-1, 6-0, over Juan Manuel-Callis of O’Connell College Preparatory Academy in Galveston. Ward, however, was too much for the tall lefty in the quarters notching a 6-1,6-1 win.