The 2006 AHS Women's Tennis Team is continuing the winning tradition by clinching its fourth consecutive Mountain Athletic Conference championship and moving forward in the state playoffs.
“No one expected this from us this year,” Coach Buster Brown said. “We lost some good players like Ashley Brown and Alexa Ely (State 3A Singles Champion) and people counted us out a little bit. So this is a good feeling, this is probably the sweetest one for what we overcame. The girls competed hard today (in defeating Roberson 5-4 to win the MAC title) and showed lots of heart. That’s this team’s greatest quality and that’s all I can ask of them.”
In the first round of the playoffs, freshman Taylor Margaret Haynes, playing at No. 3 singles, finished off freshman Khoury Beshara in about 30 minutes, helping the Cougars to a dominating 5-0 win over Foard in the 3A bracket.
At No. 2 singles, Nicole Powell won 6-2, 6-0, and Christiane Pheil won, 6-2, 6-1 at No. 1 singles. Junior Miah McClinton and sophomore Libba McKinsey also won singles matches to clinch the victory.
Pheil (12-0) and McKinsey (13-0) are undefeated in singles play this year. Pheil recently committed to play college tennis at Colorado next year, and Nicole Powell has committed to play basketball at the College of Charleston.