Mississippi Aces are JTT Section Champions!
The Mississippi Aces began playing summer team tennis in 2015. The captain was Lynda Ratliff. The original members on the team included three boys and three girls. They were Charlie Ratliff, Lytle Moore and Alex Holder. The girls were Owen Wilkinson, Lucy Lee and Macie Shelton. After winning State that year, this group competed in South Carolina where they narrowly missed winning sectionals to Georgia with an overall game score of 208-200. Determined to come back one day with a victory, the team added Aiden Usry, Bel Monteith, Ella Roth and Ryan Roth to the roster. For three consecutive years this team has won the state title. For three years they have travelled to compete among the best southern junior teams at sectionals. This past weekend this driven team of 10, led by Captain Lynda Ratliff and Coach Brooke Shelton, travelled to Rome, Georgia to compete against 9 other teams from all 9 southern states at the USTA Junior Team Tennis Sectionals. After beating Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana and Tennessee, the team advanced to the finals to play South Carolina. Every court of singles, doubles and mixed was a long hard fought battle. The Aces came out on top with a 38-21 win over South Carolina. This is the first time that an intermediate team from Mississippi has ever won at JTT Sectionals.
