While the festivities of Homecoming week carried on, Wylie Tennis played their way to another district win, defeating Wylie East 13-2. This victory marks the team’s seventh consecutive district championship and continues their streak of undefeated district play.
“Being a part of something outside of school, well in school obviously but not just schoolwork, It feels really good to accomplish something that you’ve been working so hard for,” Sarah Rigby (12) said.
On the other hand, it can be a lot of pressure to meet the high expectations set by previous wins and continue the winning streak.
“It’s really stressful, honestly, because it’s becoming such a long streak,” Christine Tykoski (11) said, “It’s great because we’re winning like everybody wants to win, but it’s so stressful because you don’t want to be the person that messes it up.”
While the district season does not start until the beginning of the school year, the tennis team works all summer to prepare, from going to camps to starting team practice in July.
“This summer [the coach] actually asked us to go to Lovejoy summer camp, and it was from 8:00 to 11:00 everyday basically, Monday through Friday,” Rigby said.
Additionally, to prepare for the district season, they play a pre-season. The team plays matches against schools outside of Wylie’s district in order to play at a higher level.
“A lot of the earlier matches, we mess around with the line up a lot and see what doubles teams work, should someone move up a spot in the lineup, should they move down, it’s more figuring out where people should be, like rank-wise,” Tykoski said.
A key part of the team’s continued success is not only spending time playing tennis together, but also bonding outside of practice and competition.
“We get to know each other outside of school and even just seeing each other outside of tennis is super helpful because it’s like, you get to build that connection,” Rigby said.
Even though the district season is concluded for Wylie Tennis, they will continue their fall season by playing in the Bi-District championship and will play later in the school year during their spring season.