WEATHER DELAYS STATE TOURNEY
BRYAN, Texas—Texas High’s girls doubles team, along with the rest of the state tournament qualifiers, experienced what many softball and baseball teams have gone through this very wet spring: a rain out.
Scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. at Mitchell Tennis Center and Omar Smith Instructional Tennis Courts on the Texas A&M University campus, the event got underway at nearly 8 p.m.
Lady Tiger seniors Annie Tarwater and Kirsten Weber were scheduled to play a team from George Ranch High School out of
Richmond in the state quarterfinals at 11:30 a.m. originally. Based on the delayed start time, the 5A girls doubles quarterfinals started past deadline. All first-round matches were to be played Tuesday with semifinals beginning at 8:30 a.m. this morning.
“I’m just telling them to be confident and take it one match at a time because when you get to the state tournament, there can be a lot of distractions,” Texas High coach Wade Sinard said heading into the state event. “Luckily, they’ve already signed to play collegiately, so college coaches and scouts won’t be a distraction for them.”
“The just don’t need to get ahead of themselves and conquer their nerves,” Sinard said. “At a tournament like this, where everyone has high talent, it comes down to who controls their emotions the best. That’s a very important factor. We know what we’re up against, so the girls are confident.”
Tarwater played at the state tournament last year in mixed doubles and just missed advancing as a freshmen.
“Annie has done a good job all year of being a leader and helping them get ready for the tougher opponents,” Sinard said. “They are a very good team, not only as tennis players but also in communication. In between every point they’re talking and keeping each other up; and they do a great job of working through things together.”
THS’ coaches have noticed a peculiar aspect to the girls’ play leading into the event, even back to the regional tournament, which they won after a rain delay on the final day.
“We’ve really noticed that they need a very long warm-up these last few weeks, with them being the only ones left competing we have focused on them a lot more,” Sinard said. “We’re doing practice matches every day, and they almost need two sets to really get going. I can’t explain it.
“We will definitely be playing a match before the play at state.”
During the season, the team was seeded in every event, and received a bye or played a non-seeded, lessskilled opponent in the first round. They own a 20-2 record.