The Cody Tennis teams fresh off their Top five finishes at the Regional Tournament now get set for the 2020 State Tournament in Gillette. Today, a look at the number 3 doubles teams for each the Broncs and Fillies. For the Broncs, the number 3 doubles tandem of TJ Smith and Neil Markert were the lone team that came away with a first place finish at Regionals. The Broncs overall had a great showing finishing 4th overall. Now, this tandem could be set up well for a deep State Run. TJ talks about their approach when they hit the court.
“So we kind of have Neil up front and me in the back. So I kind of cover what Neil doesn’t poach. And then we usually just play like that. We play different strategies for when we’re up or if we’re down and we just alter the game throughout.”
And Neil goes on to talk about not resting on their Laurels and that they need to employ the right mindset each time they hit the court.
“Well over the season me and TJ have often gone into split sets and we’ve had to play three sets overall. We’ve kind of accepted that. If we lose the set we’re like, alright well let’s win the next one. We’ve done it before we’ll do it again. With embracing the fight it’s just this might be a hard team but we just have to fight them back and win.”
Jason Quigley took over the tennis team this year and it’s been a successful first year for the coach and adds what it’s going to take for this team to accomplish their goals.
“Be positive, be confident in yourself and be respectful. If we go out with confidence and we’re positive and we respect everybody, you know we don’t go out thinking this will be easy or we have no chance but we respect that chance that we got a shot at it, we’re going to be great. We just have to live by that. We can’t get bad body language, we can’t be negative, we can’t get in that predetermined oh I don’t have a chance because it’s not reality, we do.”
The Cody Tennis teams are in Gillette for the State Tournament Thursday through Saturday. Stay tuned to the Big Horn Radio Network for updates and results.
