For the first time in Pleasant Grove history, the varsity tennis team advanced to state, ending the season with bronze, 3rd place medals around their necks.
After months of hard work, the tennis team broke through the regional barrier and made a historic trip to state, earning them the title of the first team in Texarkana to ever make it to state.
On October 21, Tennis Coach Eric Pickett loaded up his top eight boys and top eight girls and headed off to the Regional Tennis Center in Waco, Texas.
“The process [of getting to state] has been years,” Coach Pickett said. “The team that went to state has been here since middle school, so the importance of building and having the middle school tennis program has been a key point.”
This year the team has 12 seniors, and many of them have been in the tennis program since 6th grade. The process of getting to the 2025 State Tournament however, started in early October.
“It was definitely hard getting to state,” senior Lynleigh Henderson said. “I’m just proud of the team and how we persevered through everything.”
The team knew going into bi-districts that they had a good chance of breaking through the regional barrier this year. Once they achieved that goal they continued to win all the way to the last round earning third place at state for all their hard work.
“I think belief is big, and this year’s team, being so many seniors and being so close last year, I think the belief was still there,” Coach Pickett said. “And we knew that we had a chance to break through.”
But belief wasn’t the only thing that helped propel the team to state; team bonding, traditions, and mottos are also a part of the process. For a few years the team has had a stuffed hawk they named Jimmy, AKA Jimmy Talon. Jimmy went to state with the team and provide encouragement to the team.
“I like our team yell that we do before every match,” Lynleigh said. “We do the black and gold chant, and we all circle up, and put our rackets in the middle of the circle, and this year we added our stuffed Hawk in the middle.”
Chanting around Jimmy will be a core high school memory for many of the tennis players, but it’s definitely not the only one. The team spends hours together at tennis tournaments, but once their season is over they won’t spend as much time together.
“Honestly, the most memorable experience is just the fact that we got to extend our time together, ” Coach Pickett said. “You know, a lot of times we end up getting cut short on the season and get knocked out at playoffs, and the fact that we kept advancing this year just gave us more time together.”
Now the team is in offseason and focused more on conditioning and strength training in preparation for the spring season. Now that they’ve placed at state, the competition is more aware of PG’s tennis program.
“Every year we’ve been kind of climbing the ranks to break through to state, and to finish out as the number three ranked team in the state, we’re on the map now as a contender,” Coach Pickett said. “It just shows what we’ve got going here with these kids and the program, and if we keep training hard, we will hopefully have more chances in the future to come.”