Carroll tennis ready for district meet and beyond

The Carroll boys tennis team is well-positioned as it heads to the district tournament this weekend, with the Lady Dragons also likely to qualify to move on to the regional tournament.

The tournament will be played this Thursday and Friday at a neutral site, Grapevine High School.

Carroll head tennis coach Corey Aldridge said the Dragons and Coppell look to be the top teams, at least on paper.

The Dragons and Cowboys have met three times this season, with Carroll coming away each time with victories, although Aldridge said they were not “dominating” wins.

“We’ve got a majority of the top seeds,” Aldridge said. “But we’ll see on Thursday and Friday.”

Heading in as top seeds are boys singles player Alec Reusche and a Carroll mixed doubles team.

For the boys, Reusche has played extremely well, as he had collected tournament titles at Keller and McKinney. He also grabbed second place at the Tall City Tournament in Midland and a third-place showing at the Allen Invitational. The Allen tourney is considered by many to be the toughest spring tournament.

Reusche, a sophomore, has younger sister Taylor, a freshman, teaming with junior Brady McClanahan on the top-seeded mixed doubles team.

The Reusche/McClanahan duo has collected a second place at the Keller Invitational and first at Tall City.

Mixed doubles is a strength for Carroll. The second-seeded mixed doubles team is Carroll’s Clara Merklin and Matt Landers.

Landers is on the tennis court after serving as the starting point guard on the Carroll basketball court this season.

Other seeded Dragons are the boys doubles teams of Callen DiGiovanni and John Zenick (second seed), Greg Barlow and Preston New (third seed); and girls doubles players Ashley Kim and Alexis Brown (second seed).

The difference may come down to the play of other Carroll players, who include boys singles, Nicholas Cardillo; girls singles, Mac Kenzie MacTavish and Nishita Pondugula; and girls doubles, Cameron Wang and Deborah Rao.

Alec Reusche may have the most eyes on him at the district meet.

“He’s probably the top boy we have the highest hopes for,” Aldridge said, noting Reusche is likely one of the top three or four players in the state, but all those top players are in the same region.

Along with his sister, Aldridge said both are solid players.

The top two teams from the district meet will advance to the regional tournament on April 20-21 at the University of Texas at Arlington. UTA also happened to win the bid to host the regional golf and track meets.

In previous years, the Dragons’ trip to a regional meet normally meant a bus ride to Lubbock.

The top two regional qualifiers will advance to the state meet in College Station this year.

This story was originally published April 6, 2015 at 3:31 PM with the headline "Carroll tennis ready for district meet and beyond."