A regional championship on the line can bring nerves even to seniors that have been there and done that. Sometimes the feeling of that last chance can be overwhelming.
Not for Rider senior Casie Curry. Or for partner Julia Chon, who will get more chances to advance to the UIL State Tournament but has just one tournament remaining with Curry, who will play at Midwestern State next season.
The UIL State Tournament in College Station should provide a test, something this week’s Region I-5A Tournament could not do. Curry and Chon closed it out Wednesday with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Aledo’s Priscilla Schimming and Erin Davis at the McLeod Tennis Center in Lubbock.
“We don’t have a weakness,” Rider coach Kyle Apperson said. “There’s not a weakness. We don’t do anything great, great – but they do everything well. We serve well, they return well. A lot of teams you want to play to this player, but both (our) players can play, I think that’s the main thing.”
Curry also had a chance to play in front of her brother Connor, the 2014 UIL champ from Rider. But still no nerves.
“It was super fun, I found this year to be a lot easier,” Curry said. “I was not as nervous having already been through it all.”
What about your younger talented teammate, who is a sophomore ready for her first state tournament?
“She handled it really well,” Curry said. “She was nervous last year and got all the jitters out. We came into regionals pretty confident. We had seen all our competition.”
Hard not to think ahead to state (May 17-18) where Curry wants to win a round this time and take it from there.
“I’m a lot more confident this year,” Curry said. “Julia and I are more confident.”
“It was definitely real exciting,” Chon agreed. “I know it’ll be a new experience and I’m glad I get to do it with Casie, she is so much fun. I think it’s really cool (in school tennis) where everyone is supporting you no matter where you’re at. In Supers, it’s just individual and only supporters are your family members.”
Eye on the prize: Casie Curry has new partner, but same big goals
The Wichita Falls tennis family will only have this special doubles team to root on at Class 5A state this year.
Rider’s Chris Selsor finished fourth in boys singles. He was hoping to get hot on his final day and win two matches, but Aledo’s Alec Meendsen knocked off Selsor 6-2, 6-3 for third. Amarillo’s Rajiv Saralaya, who defeated Selsor Tuesday, won the title, 6-0, 6-3 over Tauber Short of Amarillo.
Others to win 2018 Region I-5A championships were Reilly Cleff of Grapevine in girls singles, Quinton Scharfenberg and Indy Axton of Coronado in boys doubles and Jackson Harwell and Sahiba Trehan of Amarillo in mixed doubles.
No Region I-5A champion even lost a set in 2018. But none dominated any more than Rider’s dynamic doubles team. “It wasn’t even that close,” Apperson said of the 6-2, 6-0 score which made it six games lost in six sets in the tournament.