LUCE Photography
Corey Aldridge has been the Carroll ISD tennis coach since 2004 and this past fall, he and his players hit a milestone for the program: They advanced to the UIL State Championships for the first time ever and placed third overall. On top of that, the team also clinched the district title in the 5-6A division. Coach Aldridge reflects on this past season and what the team is now focusing on this spring.
IT WAS PRETTY EXCITING … going to state. There’s four regions in Texas, and you have to win your region in order to make the state tournament. We’ve actually gotten to the regional finals numerous times in my tenure here but have never kind of gotten over that hump. So it was really nice to be able to get over that and make it to [the] state tournament.
THE KIDS FELT … great! It was pretty cool. They were a part of history. At the beginning of the year, I had sat the seniors down. I had a pretty good feeling we had a good shot this year — just like years previous. And they were willing to put in the extra work and extra time. It paid off.
THE STATE SEMIFINALS STARTED OFF … intense. After a two-day rain delay, we finally had dry courts to play. We started out going up 4-3 after the doubles matches. We had several singles close singles matches... some went our way, most didn’t. The final score ended up 10-7.
THERE WAS A LONG RAIN DELAY … the day before. The kids were anxious to get out there and play. We were all fired up and ready. We had four freshmen in the lineup... and they played great. After the match was over, kids were obviously disappointed. However, kids quickly realized they had made history... as this was the first time Carroll had made the state tournament.
WE WERE REALLY CLOSE TO … actually making the finals. We lost 10-7 in the semifinals to the eventual state champions out of Houston — Houston Memorial — and they went ahead and won it all, so I guess if you’re going to lose to somebody, it’s kind of nice to lose to the champions. And it was close so that was encouraging to them to realize that. They were really the closest to the state champions as anyone had been all year.
WE PRACTICE IN … the morning. We have our varsity practices, [and] we go from 7 until about 8:45, 9 a.m. And so that’s just kind of our standard practice. Some of the seniors wanted to start coming in before 7 a.m. and so pretty much every morning we had kids coming in at 6:15, which is early for these kids. They were putting in the time — coming in early, staying a bit little late, hitting extra balls and so. I think that really helped us get over that hump, just the extra effort and extra time that the kids put in.
WE TAKE PRIDE IN … our doubles. We train really hard on doubles strategies and doubles tactics. When you’re comfortable at the net in tennis, playing doubles, you’re going to be comfortable in singles coming in and [be] more aggressive. So I feel like that translated well with us this year. I think we have a reputation from other coaches [that] they like to play us because we play pretty good doubles. And I feel like our kids understand it and that’s really kind of helped us not only on the doubles court but also it transitioned well for singles as well.
WE’VE GOT A NEW ASSISTANT COACH … that [has] really come in and helped a lot. Her name is Abby White. She came in and really stepped in and helped out. I think she’s been a big factor in helping us kind of get over the hump this year. She comes early and stays late and helps the kids outside of our normal practices.
WE’RE PLAYING 22 TOURNAMENTS THIS SPRING … so it’s a full schedule and we’re getting ready. For our varsity kids, we’re going to Houston to play a tournament. We’ll play a tournament in Midland, Allen High School in North Dallas has a big one every year. [So] those are the three big tournaments that we’ll be playing in.
CISD HONORED … our team at the board meeting on Feb 3. We will honor the kids again at our end of the year banquet in April.