COMMODORE MEDIA GROUP

Photocredit:MSHAA Tennis

The Lafayette Tennis Team has won back to back state titles and are going to continue to keep on winning them. This team has recently started to rise to success, winning three state titles in total.

Starting back in 2018, Lafayette sat at a 6-3 win, and had made it to the finals. They were up against a very talented team, Stone County, who would soon be moved up an entire division. They were down at first, but prevailed with a tight score of 4-3. This was their first ever state championship win, which took place at Parham Bridges Tennis Center, in Jackson, Mississippi.

Debbie Swindoll is the coach behind these plays.  She purposefully chooses to play advanced teams ahead of time like Oxford and Tupelo so her players gain experience and get some hard competition in beforehand. Her team then sweeps the teams in their own division which has led to the winning of these state titles. 

During the beginning of the season, the lineup was very different. The teams were shaky then, only playing good when the other teammate was struggling. Later on, Swindoll decided to try something new and put people together who have never played as partners. They ended up playing great together. This was by them having similar strengths and playing in sync. Both girls doubles teams rarely lost a match after that.  Swindoll even managed this while losing multiple of her star seniors. 

This past year, the team scored a 6-1 win against Vancleave, winning them the 2021 state title. The match scores at first totalled out to be 3-1, but the following matches were neck and neck. The teams kept on getting more games then losing them. Lafayette proceeded to win every single match after that. 

As a result, Swindoll has been awarded tennis coach of the year by the Association of Coaches.”This was all because of experience,” -Coach Swindoll. With this, nothing could have been accomplished without all the hard work Swindoll has put into this along with her players. Of course, this could not have also been possible without the help of assistant coaches Ashley Smith Holcomb and Ryan Mounce. The Commodores are only getting stronger and more experienced from here on out.