And Skyler Hayes thought with big brother there to root him on through a heated tiebreaker that he should not just make one state final but one-up his brother and make another. Mission accomplished.
Hayes, a junior at Crowell High School who won a state doubles title last year playing with brother Tristan, is the only Wichita Falls area player going for a UIL State Tennis title in 2018. He'll face Dominic Gibson of Lenorah Grady at 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Mitchell Tennis Center. Gibson, the defending champ, lost just one game in two matches Thursday.
"He got a bronze his junior year," Skyler said of Tristan, who did win two doubles state titles. "I'm going to do better than that."
Hayes wasn't the only area athlete to earn a medal Thursday in the heat at Texas A&M University. Curry, a senior who has signed with Midwestern State, played a spectacular quarterfinal match as she and Julia Chon rolled over Highland Park's Annika Juergens and Nell Covington 6-2, 6-1.
Not just any team can handle a Scots' team like that at state. And not just any team can overwhelm Rider's best doubles team in a few years, either. But Alamo Heights' Fiona Crawley and Brianna Wilbur turned the tables on Rider, sprinting to the finish line in a 6-2, 6-0 Class 5A girls doubles semifinal.
There'll be more chances for Chon while Curry had a chance to leave with a medal. The duo were undefeated this spring until losing to a team Rider coach Kyle Apperson fully expects to claim gold Friday.
"Our first match we played really good. In our second match those girls played really well," said Chon, who said it was the best opponent they'd faced all year.
"When I was watching them warm up, I was saying, I think we're going to be in this," Apperson said. "Then the first five games we played pretty good and it was 2-all, about to be 3-2 them and then our level kind of dropped off. And they stayed and we weren't going to beat that team not playing our best."
Apperson was happy to see his team achieve a goal of winning a match at state but blamed himself some for not getting that focus into moving another step.
"I put a lot of emphasis on winning that first round and I probably have to take a little blame for that second round," Apperson said. "I'm happy that we got a medal and we got beat by the state champs."
Kade McAdams of Seymour also earned a medal as the sophomore earned a three-set quarterfinal victory in Class 2A boys singles. He rallied from a set down in that one but then saw Dylan Ging of Thrall do the same thing to him in a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 semifinal.
"I just wanted to win my first match and I'm very happy to have gotten a medal," McAdams said.
As for his comeback to beat Tom Nguyen of Woden, after trailing 4-1 early and dropping the first set 6-3, McAdams said that "showed me I could do anything I put my mind to."
Like Chon he'll have more chances.
"I have to come here and win it next year — first place," he said.
Hayes won his first match 7-5, 6-3 over Riley Lewis of Borden County. It wasn't a match where he got to hit out on the ball much but his patience and experience paid off.
Down 5-4 and 6-5 in the first set of the semifinal, it took more patience but also some big-time shots to pull ahead of Cox, who had gone three sets in the first round.
By putting away his third set point for a 9-7 tiebreaker it showed Cox he'd have to stay out there for a third set again to win. And Hayes instead cruised 6-0 in the second.
"Whoever won that tiebreaker is probably going to win that match," Hayes said. "You got to let them know (on his exclamation on set point) because sometimes showing authority will get into his head. It was definitely emotional to know that I got that first set under my belt and know I had some room for error."
It's either silver or gold for Hayes now as he closes out a successful junior season of athletics for the Wildcats.
Crowell just won a golf championship, too, with freshman Seth Bearden, who was also in the UIL State Tennis on Thursday. He and ... Click here to read full article
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