Harlingen In It To Win It
By: JD Youngblood
The Harlingen Men's 3.5 tennis team suffered their second loss of the season amidst controversey at the McAllen Country Club recently. Having to wait on the Mcallen team that was noticeably late to some of the Harlingen players, a shouting match errupted before a single ball was struck in competition.
The distraction, whether accidental or gamesmanship of the part of McAllen...worked. The Harlingen team, which had gone in confidently, lost 3 - 2 with Alex Flores winning #1 singles and Isreal Trevino and David Lopez winning #1 doubles. The other singles and doubles would all lose in very close split sets.
Competing against Brownsville #1 for first place this 2009 spring season, some of the players wondered if they were out of it as far as going to sectionals. "Absolutely not!", said Sam Martinez (a former league captain). " If and when we win the next two matches, we will face the Brownsville #1 team a third time. Once we beat them, they will also have two losses; however, we will have beat them 2 to 1 head to head...making us the winners." His partner (Jorge Salinas) had this to say, "I felt kind of down after the loss. I felt I should have played the first set like I did the second set and hit out...but I didn't for some reason. It was actually Sam that called me to tell me that we were not out of it at all. We had a good team practice and meeting on Monday and everyone is pulling together to get the big win against Brownsville. The good thing is that we all hate to lose."
Whether you like the Harlingen team's chances or not, one thing is common when you address any of their players...they all have that comittment to win. You almost feel sorry for the other teams.
