Alyssa's Tennis Season

Despite playing her season with a stress fracture in her foot, Alyssa had a good tennis season. She started the season off in the first doubles position playing with Annemarie. about 3 matches into the regular season, Alyssa's coach switched her over to 2nd singles. Alyssa was actually pretty happy with the move, even though it wasn't the top position. Lehi was in a much harder region this year, so they were going up against multiple schools that were state champions the previous year. Alyssa was able to pull off more games and more wins than most of the other positions on the team. It was also fun for us to be able to see her play singles again. She had fun with it. She had her senior night after the last home match of the season. Here are all of the seniors with the coaches. (this was the largest senior group we have seen since Alyssa started tennis)

Alyssa with her coaches. Coach Karen, to the left of Alyssa had fought to keep Alyssa playing doubles since sophomore year. She has been such a great mentor to Alyssa. She has also really enjoyed having coach Christina, to the right of Alyssa, as head coach these last 2 years. The other coach was new this year, so Alyssa did not know her that well.

We are so proud of her for her improvement in tennis over the years. She really has loved playing and will miss it so much.

Alyss made it to state. She actually was seeded higher than her opponent, so we had hopes that she would make it past the first match to the round of 8. But you never know with these seedings how evenly matched they will be. On top of Alyssa's stress fracture, she also had shoulder pain through the last half of her season. This made serving really difficult for her. We tried taping up her shoulder for this match and the tape ended up distracting her more than helping her, so her coach ripped it off as soon as she was able to get on the court to do it. Alyssa played well, but she did not end up winning. She did, however, get one really satisfying overhead that bounced the ball over the back fence, so that was fun.

Oh and she got her state hoody and a chance to play at Liberty Park, so it was a good end to her season and to high school tennis. Hopefully she continues to play in the future, even without the pressure of getting better to compete with the other girls on the team for position.