Last season, the Wiregrass Ranch boys tennis team captured a state title in Class 3A.
Technically, they had to share it with another school. And while that was an impressive accomplishment, it wasn’t good enough for their coach and his players. It meant another team was always part of the discussion.
“The first thing people ask is, who did you tie with? So instead of being able to talk about your team and what you did, you end up talking about the other team that was there as well,” explained David Wilson, the Wiregrass Ranch coach.
(Courtesy of David Wilson)
This year, no other team needs to be mentioned.
The Bulls are the sole owners of the state title after capping off a 21-0 season by taking out the competition at the state tournament in April.
And being a champion is a lot nicer than being a co-champion.
“It’s just a whole lot more fun to hold the trophy above your head and not have to hand it off to somebody else afterward so they can take their pictures,” Wilson said. “Getting rid of the ‘co’ in front of your state championship is nice.”
The team wasn’t very nice when it came to their matches.
It frequently breezed past its opponents, although Wilson said the regional tournament provided especially tough competition, and individual players had some challenging matches during their playoff run.
Before it took the state championship, Wiregrass Ranch had already claimed a title. The team won the DecoTurf High School Tennis Championships in Tennessee, back in April.
In that tournament it faced Hinsdale Central, a team that won the last two championships and hadn’t lost a match in four years. And, if spectators were hoping for a close contest, they didn’t get one.
“It was 7-2, so we actually beat them pretty good,” Wilson recalled.
The Bulls beat a lot of teams this year, but their coach wasn’t surprised. After last year’s success, Wilson (who also coaches the successful soccer team and is the school’s athletic director) thought this year’s team would actually be better than the co-state champions.
It was a sentiment shared by his players.
“We had an idea that we were going to be really good,” said Alejandro Feliciano, who was a big part of the championship team and part of last year’s team, too.
“I think our team had more chemistry this year than we did last year,” said Feliciano, who also is nationally ranked as an individual tennis player.
Feliciano could tell the Bulls had something special this year, and is proud to have completed his high school tennis career with an outright team tennis title. He’ll continue his time on the court with a scholarship to Newberry College in South Carolina.
With players like Feliciano and Foresight Okungbowa graduating, it might seem like a good opportunity for other teams to catch up and possibly dethrone Wiregrass Ranch. Unfortunately for those schools, Wilson is already replenishing the team’s depth, and he’s using familiar names to do it.
Okungbowa’s brother will be a freshman at Wiregrass Ranch next year, and other former and current players have siblings who will enter the school in future years. And with top player Agie Moreno returning, Wilson feels like the team will have the tools to remain competitive.
“I think we should be good for a little while longer,” Wilson said.
For now, the team can enjoy the school’s first outright state championship.
Wilson said the players have benefited from a little celebrity at school, which is common for some athletes, but pretty rare for a tennis team.
Wiregrass Ranch has taken pride in the team’s accomplishment, and Wilson is glad to have been the one to provide it.
“Personally, it meant a lot to me to be the first coach to bring home a state title,” he said. “Leading the athletic program, it was really important for me to sort of set the standard for how hard we should be working and what we do as a program,” Wilson said.
Published July 1, 2015
