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May 11, 2010Thursday, May 13
May 13, 2010The well oiled, steam locomotive that is the Vandebilt Catholic athletic program continued to churn at a high speed this week.
Just a week after winning the Class 4A softball state championship for the third time in five years, it was the school’s boy’s and girl’s tennis teams that stole the spotlight this time around and captured the state championship.
The win marked the third-straight Division II title for both teams.
“It’s the third one in a row,” said sophomore Jacob Richard. “That’s hard to do, so it feels pretty awesome.”
The Vandebilt boys took home the title with 18 overall points, putting them seven ahead of the runner-up, Neville.
The girl’s team had similar success and earned a seven-point win against Ursuline Academy.
“It says a lot for our program and even more for our region as a whole,” said junior Matt Spence. “A lot of the semifinals and a lot of the finals were Vandebilt going against our competitors from our region, so it says a lot for us.”
Outside of the team-wide competition, several individual performers also took home the state title.
Spence and Richard teamed up and won the double’s title, defeating their teammates, Hayden Bourgeois and Philip McMahon, 6-0, 5-7, 6-3 for the title.
This year marked the first time in Spence’s career he was playing in doubles after spending the beginning of his career as a singles player.
He won the state title in singles as a freshman and was the runner up in his sophomore year.
“I used to like playing by myself, because all of the pressure is on you to perform,” Spence said. “But this year, it definitely took some pressure off me, and it’s definitely cool to have someone who’s out there on the court with you that can share the battle with you.”
For Richard, it was his second-straight doubles title after he and teammate Nick Caletri took home the title last year.
“It was a little different having a new partner, but it was awesome,” he said. “It’s something I won’t soon forget.”
On the girl’s side, junior Jessica Bourque won a doubles trifecta as she and her teammate, Sarah Bourgeois took home the state title in a 6-4, 6-3 win against their teammates Meghan Philp.
The win is the third in a row in doubles for Bourque, and she has done so with a different partner each year.
With one more year to go, the junior is already thinking four-peat.
“Definitely,” she said when asked if she was thinking about a fourth title. “It’s definitely hard working with a different partner every year. It’s nice to be the favorite, but in a way it’s more pressure.
The Terriers also placed second in both the boys and girls individual events.
Caletri represented the Terriers in the boy’s final, losing 6-3, 6-2 to Caddo Magnet junior Jay Meyers, and Emma Pitre dropped a 6-0, 6-0 match to Jay Meyers’ sister, sophomore Mary Meyers in the girl’s final.
