Burnet’s Salinas & Van Zandt earn state silver medal in girls doubles
CAPTION: The Burnet girls doubles team of Aly Van Zandt (left) and Tatum Salinas wear the silver medals from Class 4A state tournament. Courtesy photo
The Burnet High School girls doubles team of Tatum Salinas and Aly Van Zandt finished the season by capturing the Class 4A state silver medal May 17.
The Lady Dawgs lost to Kynlee Craddock and Gabriella DiShong of Canyon Randall 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 in the state championship match.
Salinas noted the Randall duo were tough and took a 2-0 lead in the first set.
“It’s a place you don’t want,” she said. “We battled our way to 5-3. We had one more game to change it out. We had to grind and fully lock in.”
That resulted in a 6-5 lead with Salinas serving for the first set.
“I decided to get my serve in and set up Aly at the net,” she said, which worked.
The second set played out like the first except the Randall team raced to a 4-0 lead.
“We were both running on fumes,” Salinas said. “We came back and tied it at 5-5. After winning that first set, we got confident and started playing with care and focus. That gave us momentum to more forward. That last set we were going to have to put everything we had into it. I was very proud of how we played.”
Salinas and Van Zandt defeated Brylee Jesko and Brooke Febstock of Canyon 6-1, 4-6, 5-7 in the semifinals and Angela Lopez and Gabriella Sifford of Fredericksburg 6-3, 6-2 in the quarterfinals.
As the Lady Dawgs headed to San Antonio, they decided to stick with what had worked throughout the year.
“Playing aggressive was our main focus leading up to the tournament,” Salinas said. “We’d have to be aggressive and take shots. Throughout all of our matches, we came in as the favorite and jumped out early.”
But for whatever reason, she said, that didn’t happen in the quarterfinals against Fredericksburg or in the semifinals against Canyon.
“Against Fredericksburg we were down 0-3 and 0-2 and won six straight,” Salinas said. “Something happened when we played Canyon. There was a mix of nerves and playing our game. State is such a hard tournament to get into. You have to make it past district and regionals by finishing in the top two. Making it to state has been my goal since freshman year. It’s the ultimate reward for all our hard work.”
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