Back in early February, tennis tryouts were wrapping up and the Hamilton girls team was feeling good about how the season was going to play out.

Then a new face came out for the final day.

All anyone needed to see was the forehand of Isha Kaushik to understand the expectations for the season changed.

“Everyone talks about how hard her forehand is,” Hamilton coach Mark Zeller said. “We knew she changed the outlook and made us that much better.”

Kaushik has one of those swings that you can hear before you see it. The velocity creates chatter and a “whoosh.”

She steps into the high school level of team tennis for the first time after playing the national circuit, including time in Spain, while taking classes online as many of the top athletes in individual sports do to work on their game.

 “I used to travel a lot of tennis,” Kaushik said. “It’s a lot. I wanted to enjoy tennis a little more as a team sport. It has been fun, and interesting.”

Walking in on the last day of tryouts – she enrolled at Hamilton the week of tryouts and had to get cleared after getting her physical and filled out the AIA paperwork – and taking over the No. 1 could have caused a riff.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect, coming on the last day,” said Kaushik, who has 8-1 in regular season matches and won two tournament singles titles for another 10 wins or so. “It was different for sure. Everyone was very accepting and kind.”

The biggest pushback could have come from Annemarie Beach, who would have been No. 1, but it never materialized. Watch one Hamilton match, and it will be clear as to why Beach embraced Kaushik instead of making a stink about it.

She is vocal, smiley, and positive during the match. If there is such a thing as bleeding school colors, Beach is the one who embodies that phrase more than anyone else.

“I’ve always been a team player no matter what,” Beach said. “I don’t care where I play if it is best for the team. If they have energy and the talent to be better, then I am all for it.

“If we can rebuild our roster and we have a chance at improving then what is there to worry about?”

Zeller, who has helped coach both the boys and girls program for years before being named head coach this year, said Beach understood the situation and managed it well.

“She was happy,” he said. “She knows what it means. One of the things we try to do is make sure the girls are not out to get each other, but out to get the other teams. We’re all one team and if you are ahead of me, it’s OK. It only makes us better.”

That has clearly been the case as the Huskies were 9-0 heading into Wednesday’s match at Millennium.

The Huskies have finished runner-up twice but have never won a state title. They are not shy that this is going to be the year.

It started at the preseason player/parent meeting, and the confidence has only grown as the season has progressed with performances at the Kiwanis tournament and Chandler district tournament.

“One team with one dream,” Beach said. “We can feel it. We want to make that happen.”

It appears the Huskies will have a good shot at it after defeating top teams like Desert Mountain in a regular season match and faring well against Salpointe Catholic in the Kiwanis event.

The success isn’t because of one sole newcomer as freshman Natasha Aghenta has slotted as the No. 3 in singles and teams with Beach to form one of the state’s top doubles teams.

Overall, the 11-player roster has only two seniors in Sneah Ganesh, who played on the No. 2 doubles with Kaushik against Xavier, and Zoe Jones, who played No. 5 singles and No. 3 doubles in a win over the Gators.

It points to the Huskies having an extended run of success, on top of what the program has already accomplished, with hopes of kicking it off with a state title.

Hamilton has made it to at least the semifinals every year, not including 2020, since 2018 while finishing runner-up in 2019 and 2021.

“It felt like ever since I got here we’ve been close (to winning it all) and then we have to rebuild the next year,” Beach said. “We’re young, and we only have one goal. We’re here and we know we can do it.”

Learning to fly

One of the first times someone can earn a level of status starts in elementary school.

Competition on recess can be brutal – unless nobody can catch you.

The fastest kid at school comes with lofty status, something Trey Smith knows a little something about.

The Williams Field junior sprinter found out pretty quickly that he could pick them up and put them down better than just about anyone else.

“It started around sixth grade,” Smith said. “I’ve always been the fastest kid on campus.”

He found his way to the football field and the speed served him well as the wide receiver already committed Arizona.

And yet he didn’t run track until last season as a sophomore. Someone with natural speed generally finds his or her way to the track at some point. He started in middle school but COVID wiped out the season and he never went back until last season.

“I am loving track,” he said. “I wish I would have run my freshman year. I just didn’t know anything about it.”

He’s just starting to find out what he can do out of the blocks and on the cinders. Smith is learning the nuances of running sprints.

He qualified for state last year despite dealing with a hamstring all year and ran a 10.61 at the state meet. He also ran a leg on the Black Hawks’ 4x100 team that finished second in the state.

This year? Now that has a bit of knowledge and help from a Williams Field assistant coach like 1988 Jamaican Olympian Howard Davis, Smith has big goals and the number support it.

He ran 10.52 early in the year and tied the school record even though he stumbled out of the blocks. Then he won the Chandler Rotary with a 10.60 despite a strong wind slowing times. He added the 200 to his events list at the Oliver invitational and brought home the gold at 21.70.

And now he and the Black Hawks are heading to California for the Arcadia Invite this weekend where he will run in the premier 100 division and the 4x100.

He's focused on approaching the state record at some point, but knows he has to run a clean race to close to the state record of 10.33, shared by Dysart’s Cricket Marshall (1978) and Hamilton’s Ryan Milus (2009).

“The coaches said I could get close to the record when the season started,” Smith said. “When I dropped that 10.52 and it wasn’t a clean start it showed me I could get close. The goal is to do well at Arcadia, post the best time I can and win state with a time that’s close to the record.”

Raising the bar

Girls wrestling in Arizona has been on a huge growth spurt and the results are starting to show up on the national level.

There were seven collegiate All-Americans with ties to Arizona.

It starts with Leigh 110-pound national champion Audrey Jimenez, who wrestled at Sunnyside, followed by Iowa 131-pounder Karlee Brooks (Valiant Prep) as she finished seventh and Colorado Mesa 110-pounder Adriana Gomez as the Basha product finished eighth.

At the NJCAA event, Raymond S. Kellis product Erica Pastoriza won a national title at 103-poinds for Iowa Central Community College, while ICCC teammate Anetha Campos, who wrestled at Glendale High, finished seventh at 117.

There was a third national champion from Arizona as Lillian Gradillas-Flores (Marana Mountain View) won the 207-pound NAIA title for Southern Oregon University, while North High product Kayla McNatt finished fifth at 110-pounds for Arizona Christian.

Diamond Dawgs

Queen Creek has the top-ranked softball and baseball teams.

The softball team is undefeated at 11-0, while the baseball team is 11-1.

The softball team lost in the 6A championship game last year and it has been a driving force this season.

“It fuels us every single day, knowing it is the end goal and we’re going to reach it,” Queen Creek pitcher Aubrey Chavez said. “We are so close knit with each other, we just know we can get the job done regardless.”

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