Although the Sedona Red Rock High School girls tennis team finished 6-7 and the boys wound up 3-10, this spring marked the most sustained year of postseason success for the SRRHS tennis teams since 2001, when boys tennis head coach Karen Halliday’s team won the class 1A/2A title after finishing as runners-up two seasons prior.
“These girls who represent us, they’ve earned it,” said girls tennis coach Carla Heckrodt. “The postseason, to experience that, the tournament itself is season-building. You learn so much as a player by just going and participating — you just come up against really strong, strong teams. If you’re smart about it, you can take away, ‘I can be like this. There’s a goal for me.’”
Heckrodt anticipates that juniors Keely Miller and Yvesche Schlee will be the core of next year’s team — with great expectations.
Miller disposed quickly of Duncan High School’s Katelynn Claridge, 6-0, 6-2, in a 8:30 a.m. first round match April 25, then Schlee and senior Sarah Grover did the same to Catalina High School’s No. 1 doubles team and won a second-round set 6-4 before dropping the final two sets, 6-3, 6-0, to Erika Miranda and Sarah Mungillo of Phoenix Christian High School.
Miller, a California transplant, enjoyed the singles matches more because “it’s more than just about winning. It’s about skills development,” she said.
Juniors Max Hauserman and Benny Guadarrama built anticipation for their leadership of next year’s boys tennis teams with straight-set victories of their own in singles and doubles, respectively.
“From what I’ve seen, the guys are making just as much improvement,” Heckrodt said. “Practicing together has bred competition which has made us all better.”
Guadarrama and one-year Serbian exchange student Andrija Anzel downed Catalina Foothills High School’s No. 1 doubles team of Prab Singh and Spencer Dunn, 6-2, 6-2, after Hauserman knocked out Phoenix Country Day School’s Daniel Bashir,
6-2, 6-0. In doing so, they fulfilled their postseason goal and that of their head coach, Duane Edwards.
“My goal for this season was just to improve my game and make it to State,” Guadarrama said. “It’s a privilege to go represent my school.”
