What do you do when you've won the district championship three years in a row, but then most of the key players from those championship teams graduate, including three of your four top varsity boys and almost all of your varsity girls?

If you're LHHS tennis coach Bob Williams or Scott Tiffany, you reload, reevaluate, rethink and most importantly, repeat – as district champions!

The LHHS varsity tennis team garnered its fourth straight district championship by outlasting a seasoned Richardson team in the district tournament on October 19th at Lake Highlands High School.

The tournament final found the LHHS team peaking at the right time to win a number of critical and hard-fought matches.

That included a sweep by the boys doubles teams, led by the number one team of captain Spencer Wood and Griffin Milan, as well as a strong performance by Luke Mason at the number one singles position.

The momentum of the match seemed to swing as sophomore Eric Speer withstood five match points against him to come back in a third set tiebreaker and win at the number three singles position, leading to a roar from the LHHS crowd.

The championship was sealed when freshman Dina Lianos won her number two singles match, leading to a spontaneous on-court team celebration best described as a massive, bouncing group hug.

However, the championship was hard to visualize at the beginning of the year.

After losing over a dozen seniors last year, many of whom were four year varsity players, coaches Williams and Tiffany were faced with an obvious rebuilding year that would include a number of freshmen and sophomores and players with no varsity experience.

In early tough non-district matches that LHHS historically would have won, the young team struggled to find wins.

The coaches focused on improvement during that period, rather than wins, and stuck with a tough schedule instead of backing down from top competition.

They also had to find the best pairings for doubles, which requires the proper mixture of skills and personalities.

The LH coaches mixed and matched pairings every week, looking for the best options. As the team started district play it began to jell, and the experience from those tough early matches began to pay off.

The team’s work culminated in its highly contested victory at the district final.

As senior team captain Spencer Wood said, "Rebuilding is one of the hardest things to do, but if you work really hard at something it will always be worth it."

The Wildcats are now preparing to travel to Tyler for regionals on Friday, October 28th.

Although it will likely be difficult for such a young team to advance, the 'Cats can take great pride in their district championship during this "rebuilding year."

The future looks bright with only two seniors on this year's varsity squad and a junior varsity team that also went undefeated in district this year.

GO 'CATS!