For the first time in near decades, the boys tennis team made a breakthrough unexpected win to the State quarterfinals. In the first round, they lost 6-0 in a default loss to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Mathematics, a heartbreaking loss.

Junior John Collier played third seed singles throughout the season and at the State tournament.

“I knew that Thomas Jefferson was going to be a good team. They won states five years in a row so I went in only hoping that I could do my best,” Collier said. “I was ready to put my best effort forward.”

The team beat two undefeated Northern Virginia teams to make it to the state quarterfinals. After these wins, the team had a sense of confidence that Collier said was smashed by the States match.

“We had defeated two undefeated teams coming into the final round so we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We beat two really good Northern Virginia teams and then we came in to this match and got completely destroyed,” Collier said.

Collier lost his match in a clean sweep in two sets. And the worst part? His opponent was an underclassmen.

“The dude I was playing was a sophomore. He beat me 6-0, 6-0 in two sets. The points were kind of close but overall, the match wasn’t,” Collier said.

Coming from beating undefeated teams as an underdog to getting smacked by a team of mostly underclassmen was a rough change for Collier.

“It was a hard transition from playing players that I could rally with to people that had me running all over the court and had excellent placement. It was frustrating because there were shots that I couldn’t get to sometimes because they were so well placed,” Collier said.

Despite the painful loss, Collier is able to find a silver lining from his experience at States.

“It helped because going to states this year showed us that we can go into the playoffs with confidence that we can beat most teams that we put our minds to,” Collier said. “We can use this as inspiration to train in the offseason and progress to higher levels of tennis.”