Youthful Windward Team Wins Spot At National Playoffs

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Meet the victorious 18-and-under Kaneohe Marine Corps Academy tennis team: (from left) Connor Tourek, Wesley Cox, Jack Thibault, Patrick Tourek, Lauren Doversola, Cori Cummings, Tara Watumull, coach Windy Cummings and coach Connie Zepeda. Photo from Stephen Doversola.

When Connie Zepeda’s 18-and-under (3.0) youth tennis team captured the spring 2008 sectional championships at Central Oahu Regional Park recently, there was much to celebrate, given that they had entered the tournament as the last-seeded team in a field of six.

Zepeda was quick to remind her team of boys and girls from the Windward side that a larger stage awaits in October, when they’ll represent Hawaii at the USTA National Championships in Mobile, Ala.

“I told them they would need to work even harder,” said Zepeda, a longtime coach in the community and former college standout at Texas Wesleyan.“Sometimes when teams travel to the Mainland, they’re just happy to be there, and they forget they’re there to play a match. We’re going with the mind-set that we’re there to win it. All summer long we’ll train with that mind-set. They’ll be put to the limit, and by that time, nothing on the Mainland will phase them.”

Zepeda’s team of Wesley Cox,Jack Thibault, Lauren Doversola, Cori Cummings, Tara Watumull and Connor and Patrick Tourek will travel under the banner of “Marine Corps Tennis Academy.“The academy, which is open to military and civilians, recently changed its name to “808 Tennis Academy,” but will keep the MCTA name through the national tournament.

“I’m superstitious, and being an athlete, we don’t want to change a thing like that,” said Zepeda, who runs 808 Tennis Academy.

The MCTA team has an average age of 12, but in terms of tennis ability, the group plays much older, she said. “They all have the same goal - to be the best, and they work hard to do that,” she said, noting that they are usually matched against older kids.“They cover each other. If one is down, they all rally around one another. We push them pretty hard, but they always stay together.”

Part of their cohesiveness may be 808 Tennis Academy’s strict enforcement of sportsmanship.“Our facility is run a little different than most,” said Zepeda, whose staff includes coaches Windy Cummings, Carolyn Thibault, Sinitao Roberts and Daniel Llarenas. “We don’t allow kids to talk about kids. If there’s a problem between two of them, we try to find out right away. We keep pushing that they’re all friends and they need to rely on each other.”

At the sectional championships, they were to endure a six-hour break between matches. Instead of letting them disperse and return later on, the coaches kept them together.

“They stayed together, played cards together and ate together.Even though tennis is an individual sport, it’s a team. They all get along very well. The week before (sectionals), they believed they could do it. Everything just clicked, and they played phenomenally.”

MCTA finished its regular season 6-2 before going 3-0 at the sectionals. Collectively, the group lost only two of the 15 matches it competed there. Both setbacks came against the tournament’s No. 1 and No. 4 seeds, respectively.