Centennial will start its bid for a fourth consecutive Class 5A team tennis championship Wednesday against the team it beat for the last one.
The Titans, 15-7, take on 24-1 Corpus Christi Flour Bluff in the semifinal round. Play begins at 8:25 a.m. on the Annemarie Tennis Center courts in San Antonio, per the UIL, with the 5A final Thursday at the same hour and place.
Last October at Baylor's Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Centennial won the title match against the Hornets 10-1, a day after Flour Bluff had blanked A&M Consolidated 10-0 in the semifinals.
A familiar opponent
Flour Bluff entered last year's state tournament 25-0. This season the Hornets have dropped one match, a 10-6 loss to Houston Clear Lake, according to UIL records. It is the program's second state appearance; the first was last year.
Coach Steve Bonds' Hornets have piled up one-sided results, with 13 regular-season wins by 19-0 or 18-1 scores. Its regular-season schedule also included a 12-2 win over Georgetown, a team College Station ISD described as top-ranked, and a 12-7 win over Tuloso-Midway, which is in this week's 4A semifinals.
The Hornets opened the playoffs with shutouts of Mission Veterans Memorial and McAllen, then beat Mission Sharyland 10-3 and San Antonio Alamo Heights 11-4. They closed out Boerne on Friday for their second straight Region IV championship, the Boerne Star reported.
Centennial's path
Every one of Centennial's seven losses came during the regular season, and six were against Class 6A programs: Southlake Carroll, Coppell, Allen, Flower Mound, Plano West and Prosper. Carroll is in the 6A state semifinals this week. The seventh was a 12-7 loss to Abilene Wylie.
Since the playoffs began, coach Douglas Fair's Titans have won five straight. They beat Birdville 12-1 and Hallsville 10-0, survived Highland Park 10-9, defeated Midlothian 10-3 and then edged district rival Frisco High 10-7 in Friday's Region II final at Prosper Walnut Grove.
The program reached state for the first time in 2022 and finished as 5A runner-up, Frisco ISD said, and it has won every 5A title since. Its 21-player roster, as listed by the UIL, includes five seniors: Shivam Patel, Ishita Ratnakaram, Vinay Sethi, Raj Sheth and Rohan Sheth.
