Reyna Gonzalez and Devon Whitsel brought home the gold at the Taylor Tournament this past weekend having only played in eight matches the entire 2019 tennis season.
Four of those matches were played last Friday, in cloudy, 52-degree weather.
The 2018 mixed doubles state champions first defeated a team from Florence 8-0 and then beat a duo from Brenham 8-1 in the second round. In the semi-finals, Whitsel and Gonzalez got their second sweep of the day with an 8-0 win over a team from Madisonville. The two took home the first place trophy with an 8-0 win over a team from Taylor.
“I thought they did great,” said Kristy Kaufmann, Rockdale High School tennis coach. “It was their first time playing together and for them to get two wins was awesome.”
The tennis team schedule has been cut short due to weather for four consecutive weeks. This week the team huddled for warmth in a tent Kaufmann bought the day of the tournament.
Bianca Zapata and Stephanie Ceja also played in the girls doubles division of the tournament. Ceja usually plays with Autumn Montelongo but grouped up with Zapata, a singles player, since Montelongo had a softball tournament. Zapata and Ceja won their first matches over Florence and Brenham in the second round before losing their final match 8-0 to Madisonville.
Eve King and Payton Miller, Rock-dale’s girls doubles team that qualified for the regional tournament last year, didn’t play in Taylor, because Miller was out with a quad strain.
The RHS tennis teams play Friday in Madisonville and the junior varsity plays on Thursday in Cameron.
Rockdale doesn’t have another tournament scheduled until Friday, March 29 in Liberty Hill. District tournament play is in Franklin Tuesday, April 2 and Thursday, April 4.
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