UCA Tennis has signed two player (that I know of) for next season.
Web-posted Thursday, May 4, 2006
Spearman duo isn't short on tennis talent
Short sisters take aim at Class 2A doubles title
By Travis Harsch
travis.harsch@amarillo.com
An era will come to an end for Spearman's Short family at the state tennis tournament next week in Austin, as twin sisters Jordan and Lindsey will play their final high school matches in the 2A girls doubles competition.
The matches will also be the last time Kyle, their dad, will coach them on the court.
"When I made the decision to coach girls, it was because I wanted to coach them," Kyle said. "There have been some trials and tribulations, but it's been enjoyable."
"I've seen them in all kinds of competitive situations and I trust that they know what to do, that they'll play hard and play right. They've had some success and it's been fun."
In addition to coaching tennis at Spearman, Kyle also coaches basketball and cross country, sports in which Lindsey and Jordan compete.
"It's really cool," Jordan Short said. "We get to spend a lot of time together, since he's our coach in everything."
After two years of playing singles, Kyle saw that putting the sisters on the court together would help their games.
"We thought it'd make us better tennis players," Kyle said of the decision to pair the sisters in doubles. "We knew to get our game better, we needed to play doubles. It was really a natural fit, being sisters and being twins and getting to work together. We just said, 'Hey, let's do it.'"
The change came after Lindsey won a state singles title her freshman year and made it back to state her sophomore year, while Jordan was third in regionals with a different doubles partner.
"We'd never really played many doubles matches until last year," Kyle said. "We're still not perfect, but we're still getting better every time we practice."
Lindsey said spending so much time with her sister has benefits on the court.
"We know each other so well, we play really well together," Lindsey said. "It's fun after the other two years I played singles. I really like it."
The Shorts were the doubles runner-up last year at state, despite a knee injury to Jordan that kept their pre-district playing time together to a minimum. This year, with a full season together, they feel they're close to playing their best.
"I think we're playing a lot better this year because we've had more time to practice," Jordan said. "I hope we're able to peak at state."
A chance at a state title will likely go through Mason's Salah Smith and Diane Crouch, who beat the sisters in the regional final. Smith was also in the pairing who beat the Shorts in last year's state final.
"I think we can beat them, but we have to play our game and have confidence we can hit our shots," Lindsey said. "They like to charge the net a lot. We have to make sure we can get our shots past them and come to the net as much as they do."
While Jordan and Lindsey will continue their tennis careers together at Central Arkansas, where both signed last week.
"We wanted to play college tennis somewhere together, and Central Arkansas was the most interested and the nicest," Jordan said. "We visited a lot of schools that were interested, but we fit in with the team. We got to meet the girls and the coaches and really liked it."
The Shorts are focused on Austin and the state tourney. Class 2A will play matches at the University of Texas's Penick-Allison Tennis Center, which helped as motivation for Jordan and Lindsey.
"It's such a treat to get to down there," Kyle said. "We alternate sites and Lindsey played at the UT courts as a sophomore, but Jordan hadn't gotten to play at UT, so we were wanting to get Jordan down there."
No matter where the matches are played, Lindsey said the Shorts will stick to a couple of family traditions.
"We always get to go shopping, and we eat at the Spaghetti Warehouse on Sixth," she said.
From :
http://www.amarillo.com/stories/050406/hss_4597757.shtml(requires subscription, that's why i pasted the whole article)