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PROVO - Dressed in a baggy T-shirt and shorts with his long red hair covered by a baseball cap, Ogden's Parker Rhodes hit the tennis court at BYU in the Class 3A state tennis tournament with the goal to play his game.
Part of that involves a lot of talking. When his racket isn't moving in between points or games, his mouth is. It's what he says helps him keep going. All his talking helped him get past Logan's Brandon Nielsen, last year's No. 1 singles champion, 6-1, 6-2 for the No. 1 singles title. And all his talking is to himself.
"I like to do that," Rhodes said. "I just say things to keep me motivated and stuff like 'you got this,' 'just do what I need to do to win,' and tell myself other things I need to do to win."
The last time Rhodes faced Nielsen was in the region tournament.
Nursing a sore shoulder, Rhodes wasn't able to fully prepare for the tournament and lost to Nielsen after beating him earlier in the year.
"I still had confidence because I played so bad then," Rhodes said.
This time, with a healthy shoulder and plenty of practice prior, Rhodes had his way against the senior. Nielsen couldn't stay in it after getting within a game early in the second set.
"If I could keep him running and moving I could play my game and win. That's what I was able to do all tournament."
On the team side of things, Judge Memorial won its first outright tennis championship since 1991. Sophomore Trey Kennedy won the No. 2 singles while junior Andrew Lam pulled out a No. 3 singles win for the Bulldogs.
"Most people at Judge don't even we have a tennis team," Kennedy said. "This was the first time we had fans. It was like a record two people."
Said Judge coach Hank Kennedy, "In high school tennis it takes depth to win and we knew we had a lot of depth. We needed every win we got."