Katy tennis advances three to state
Katy ISD is sending three entries to the tennis state championships on May 16-17.
The Katy Taylor boys doubles team of senior Reese Costis and sophomore Rohit Patil beat Seven Lakes’ Allen Chen and Sai Polepally 7-6, 1-6, 7-6 in the Region III-6A final last week at Deer Park.
Both teams are heading to state.
“After them being down in the second set 6-1, and then the third set 4-1, it was pretty exciting,” Taylor coach Tim Calhoun said.
The Taylor boys rolled through the first four games with Seven Lakes.
Then the Spartans rallied to tie the first set 4-4, and it was a struggle the rest of the way. Taylor pulled out the first set, but then lost the second and trailed 6-2 in the third-set tiebreaker before rallying to win 9-7.
Taylor opens the state tourney against New Braunfels’ Josh Van Winkle and Austin Moninger.
Tompkins’ Anish Sriniketh, the boys singles regional champ, is Katy ISD’s other qualifier.
Comick sprints into regional
Atascocita senior Jace Comick emerged as the fastest man in the loaded 15-16 area meet, winning the 100- and 200-meter dashes.
The defending area champion in the 200 repeated with a time of 21.11 seconds and won the 100 with a 10.37.
“He’s getting faster and faster every week,” coach Todd Symons said. “He’s very confident and he’s a great runner.
“He’s ranked No. 1 in the region in both (100 and 200), but there are some fast guys out there. There are three or four who are all 10.3, 10.4 guys, and Jace is 10.37 (in the 100), so he’s going to have to work hard to get it, but he’s got a shot.”
Dekaney girls shine on track
Klein won the District 15-6A team championship, but the Wildcats surpassed Klein and Westfield at the weather-delayed 15-16 area meet, finishing fourth behind The Woodlands, Oak Ridge and Kingwood.
The Wildcats scored 54 points, Westfield had 48 and Klein 45½.
“That was a huge accomplishment for us,” first-year coach Karen Smith said. “I have a lot of seniors this year, and it was a good way for us to top off our season.”
Dekaney overcame the delays caused by the flooding that kept them out of school all week.
The area meet originally was slated for Wednesday and Thursday, then pushed to one day Thursday, and finally one day Friday.
“It affected us because we didn’t go to school the entire week and it was difficult for us to get to practice, so we didn’t have as much practice time as we should have,” Smith said. “But we ended up doing better than I thought we’d do.”
The Wildcats won the 400-meter relay in 46.93 seconds.
“That’s something that I expected with the four girls I have,” Smith said. “The three seniors (Natashia Jackson, Tia Elmore and Arbonay Hill-Bess) have been running the last four years, and I have one junior (Keishawna Scott), and that’s the team that competed last year at state (finishing seventh).”