“Quality Inn!” I shouted with joy, feeling very accomplished as Taylor Kelso, Emily, Bri Perez, and Brittany Leon all moaned in disappointment. We were playing the alphabet game and were all stuck on the letter Q; I was the one to finally spot the scarce letter. We were on our way back from a very fun-filled tennis weekend in Fresno, California.
Early in the morning on September 9th, the top twelve tennis girls gathered in front of our coach’s classroom to drop the limited luggage we could bring. When the bell rang for school to start, I found myself unable to wait for the day to end. As 2:40 neared, the bell finally rang and we hung out in our coach’s classroom waiting anxiously to get on the road. When we were all ready, we packed up the two Toyota Siennas and drove off.
On the way there we watched the movie Up and ate gushers. In the other van they all played twenty questions. Time went by fast and before we knew it we were in front of our Fresno hotel. Everyone hurried out eagerly to stretch their legs. When the coach handed us the room key we were excited and pumped to start our tennis-filled weekend. All our rooms next to each other so that we could open the door in the middle and all share the two rooms. With twelve girls and four beds, the upperclassmen got the beds and us sophomores and freshmen got the floor.
Unfortunately, there were only two showers, four sinks, and six mirrors to share amongst twelve girls. Talk about chaos! We all quickly got ready, ate breakfast, and piled into the vans off to our first matches.
When we got to Sunny Side High School, we were amazed at how enormous the campus was, with three pools and over 5,000 students. We walked up through the twelve tennis courts, which is twice as many as Pitman, and received T-shirts with the tournament’s name on it. Before we could warm up, we had to just hang out and wait for any courts to open. In what seemed like a few seconds, we were called to play our match.
Brittany Leon played first singles
Emily Nelson played second singles
Mallorie Nordal played third singles
Taylor Kelso and Bree Wheeler played first doubles
Bri Perez and Danielle Chesney played second doubles
Taylor Fraga and Ilse Mendoza played third doubles
After our matches we were all tired and sore; we went back to the hotel where some of the girls went down to the hot tub. There was an outdoor mall that had a restaurant called Rubio’s; it was amazing! The others went to Chevy’s for a sit down dinner. We did some shopping and then went back to the hotel.
Everyone was getting ready for the next day’s worth of matches. As I grabbed some clothes to change into I heard an enormous crackle coming from the window. It startled me, so I called some of the girls over to check out the sound. It sounded like the window was shattering or someone was shooting the window! We all screamed and ran into the other room. Some even locked themselves in the bathroom! Only a few of us we brave enough too check the window; but with no cracks and no one outside, we were all puzzled. Our coach came in and told us something that he had been throwing rocks at the window, which both relieved and upset us at the same time. We wanted to get him back, but didn’t know how. Since we were all tired, we hit the hay. Waking up in the morning was chaos, not only did we all have to shower and get ready for our matches but we had to pack our luggage for check out. Everyone was running around making sure they didn’t forget anything. As Emily said, “I feel sorry for the person who has to clean up this mess!” We all met in the hallway to have a pep talk from our coach, and then we were on our way. As we arrived at the Central High School we all got prepared for our last two games:
Brittany Leon played first singles
Mallorie Nordal played second singles
Bri Perez played third singles
Emily Nelson and Taylor Kelso played first doubles
Bree Wheeler and Danielle Chesney played second doubles
Viviana Fuentes and Ilse Mendoza played third doubles
We lost the match but we’re still proud of the way we played. Brittany had an amazing game and a great comeback in her second set; Mallorie played a really intense match too. You could tell Taylor and Emily (best friends) had fun during their match. That’s what I love about the tennis team; even though we loose occasionally, we support each other and have fun. We ate lunch and decided to forfeit our last match because we were not going to be able to get home until around nine p.m. We all piled into the car and after a quick stop at a gas station we were on our way home.