LaFayette tennis stars named County Players of the Year again.
In 2015, LaFayette’s Madison Denny was named the Walker County Singles Player of the Year, while her classmates Cass and Will Benson garnered Doubles Team of the Year status.
Their performances in 2016 made them easy choices to repeat.
Denny, the Lady Ramblers No. 2 singles player, finished her junior season with 16-2 record, with both losses coming to Region 7-4A champion Cartersville.
She failed to drop a single game in six of her matches and 15 of her 16 wins came in straight sets, including her state playoff match against St. Pius X. Her one lone three-setter came in a region tournament semifinal victory over Heritage that put LaFayette into the championship match.
Denny won 73 percent of the games she played this spring (192 of 263) and lost just five of the 35 sets she played for a winning percentage of .857. In her three seasons as a singles player for the Lady Ramblers, she s a sparkling 29-8 overall.
“My serving has improved since last year,” she said. “I still play the ball very patiently, but my shots have gotten a lot stronger. I played with friends on the team a lot during the summer. We’d come out to the courts and hit a lot.”
Denny said her junior season, save for two matches, was one to remember.
“I felt like I could have done better against Cartersville, but I really couldn’t ask for much more,” she added. “It was a good season and it was thrilling to get to go to state.”
LaFayette tennis coach Clint Harrison said Denny’s on-court patience is a big key to her success.
“Sometimes she will just wait you out and make you keep hitting another ball,” he said. “She knows when to put a little pressure on her opponent. She’s also a fighter and she works hard to win.”
The Bensons made winning the majority of their doubles matches look easy this past season.
The senior twins went 14-3 on the season and they were a perfect 10-0 against region competition with seven victories coming by shutout. They failed to lose a single set in the 20 they played against teams from 7-4A and dropped just 20 of their 140 games.
“It felt really good to go unbeaten in the region,” Will explained. “To go up against some really good teams, like Cartersville, and beat them, just makes you feel so much better about yourself and the way that you play.
“It also felt good to make it to state since it had been a while since the (LaFayette boys) had made it that far. To be part of the team that made it after that long, was a really proud moment.”
Overall, the Bensons won 182 of 244 games and went 27-6 in their sets against all opponents as they helped get the Ramblers back to the state tournament. They finished their high school careers with a 33-17 record.
“We definitely played better this year than we did last year,” Cass said. “Our shots and shot placement got better and our serves were a lot better this year than they have been, and that’s just from practicing a lot.”
Will said an off-season of training paid major dividends.
“We have a coach in Calhoun, Dave Stokes, and we practiced with him all throughout the summer and really right up until Christmas,” he said. “We also played in a USTA league with Madison and a few others from LaFayette. We didn’t do too well, but we played against a lot of good players and that really helped us (this spring).”
“They do such an excellent job of setting each other up for easy put-aways,” Harrison said. “They’ll keep you off balance with their serves, whether it’s spinning one in to kick you out wide or just blasting some heat at you and they don’t mind winning ugly. They don’t have to blast a beautiful shot by you when they can pop a split right behind you.
“They’re fun to watch. They played doubles for us for four years and you’re lucky to get a pair to play three years together. They always kept each other in the match. You never saw them get upset or blame each other. They just kept plugging away.”
Cass said he and his brother had an offer to play college tennis at a small school in North Carolina, but turned it down to pursue a longtime dream.
“It’s been our goal for a long time to attend the University of Georgia and that’s where we’ll be going in the fall,” he said. “We’re just going as just students for now, but we might end up trying to play club tennis in the future.”