SPRING TENNIS SEASON OPENS FEBRUARY 1ST !!
SPRING TENNIS SEASON OPENS FEBRUARY 1ST !!
Congratulations Brooke Killingsworth for getting second place at the National Level 2 in Rome, GA. With this tournament she reached #2 in the South & #75 in the Nation in 16s. All hard work pays off! OTA is very proud of you! Keep it up!
Finally a rain free, for the most part, Polar Bear Southern Level 3. We had some great results! Hayden got 1st in Boys 18’s singles and doubles and Darby got 3rd in Singles and 2nd in Doubles in Girls 12’s. All of our players that went had some good wins and valuable learning experiences! They will all continue to work hard as tournament season really starts to pick up! We are proud of all of you!
Caelie 1st in Singles in Joplin and Little Rock!
Glennah and Stella won doubles in Little Rock, and Marin got 2nd in doubles!
Mercedes got 2nd in Singles in Joplin and Little Rock!
Santi Halle winner of the Boys 18s L5!
Karl and Kaden Berry Doubles champions Boys 10s green!
Karl Berry and Sarah Schneringer after Karl’s 1st place finish in the Boys 10’s Green!
Valeria Mirabent finished 2nd in the Girls 12s L5!
Kaden Berry consolation winner of the Boys 10’s orange 1!
Regina, Coach John, Jacinta with the amazing Santi!
OTA players have recently traveled to Chattanooga, Memphis, and Little Rock…
(Coach Matias talking to Brooke in Chattanooga)
(Darby and Brooke in Memphis)
(Karl, Stella, and Coach Matias at Spring Swing)
(Mamen watching Hayden in Little Rock)
(Santi Halle & Zac Curtis with Coaches Matias & Beau at Spring Swing)
It was a great end to 2016:
Hayden Shoemake was the 7A west singles runner up, and placed 4th at State!
Emma Baker placed 4th at the 7A west Conference tournament and won her first round at State!
Taylor Cheung-Damonte was the 7A west Conference doubles Championship, the 7A State doubles Champion, and the Arkansas Overall Doubles Champion!
Brooke Killingsworth was the 7A West Singles Champion, the 7A Singles Champion, and the Arkansas overall Singles Champion! She was also named the Wendy’s Arkansas Player of the Year, Along with being named Tennis Player of the Year by the Arkansas Athletics Association.
(Brooke pictured Left)
Brooke was named the Arkansas Democrat Gazette Singles Player of the Year. Taylor was also named the Arkansas the Arkansas Democrat Gazette Doubles Player of the Year!
Congrats guys on an AWESOME year!!!
It’s almost a month old, so what a perfect time to welcome in 2016!! But first, good-bye to 2015:
It was a great year, from Jack Vaughan winning the OTA tournament…
To welcoming Coach Matias (pictured giving Coach Kristina some words of coaching wisdom) to the OTA family…
To Haeleigh making the Qualifier finals…
To a phenomenal summer…
To the moving on of our two senior leaders, Mallory and Haeleigh…
To a sad, but not unexpected, good-bye to Coach Jake…
To a triumph at state for Taylor, who won the 7A doubles title…
To the beginning of off-season training, and a whole new CrossFit crew…
It was so good, Darby couldn’t bear to hear it was over…
Yes, it was an excellent year — and 2016 is already looking good! There is an excitement amongst our coaches, as we see a motivation and effort coming from our players that can only lead to good things, on and off the court. And this is not only from our older groups, but our younger ones as well. From Anklebiters to Orange Crush to Black, it’s been a fantastic winter so far!
As we move into the year, much of the excitement stems from our coaching news. As most of you know, we added two former OTA players to the staff, Matt Tabler and Caleb “C Mac” McReynolds, and they are already doing a phenomenal job. Matt has the little guys wrapped around his finger (maybe they mistake him for a teddy bear because of the beard?), and C Mac has already put a stamp on our fitness program. We are so happy to have both of them!
Coach Jared has also had a busy last year, with a rough start to 2015 transitioning to a year that saw him acquire 2 fitness certifications, serve a 3rd year on the Southern Section Coaches Commission, work as a Team USA sectional coach, coach two major team events (as a Southerns coach for 14’s Zonals and as the Arkansas coach for 12’s Southern Cup), and be one of only 2 Arkansas pros invited to attend the Southern Tournament Director’s workshop. 2016 has already been productive as well, as he was accepted into the USTA High Performance Coaching Program, where he spent a week training at the USTA National Training Center in Boca Raton. All of the information he gathers is then funneled down to the rest of the OTA coaching staff, so that we can continue to grow as a program.
So there it is — the end of 2015, and the already-begun welcoming of 2016! Thank you to all of you for being part of our OTA family, we are looking forward to an amazing new year!!!!