Faith Academy tennis wins state titles
CAPTION: The 2026 Faith Academy of Marble Falls tennis program includes Saige Clowdus (front row, left), Halley Offutt, Alyana Reyes, Kate Green, Zoey Wider, Gracelyn Bergman, Ella Lewis, Emerson Price, team manager Pace Price; head coach Rich Coleman (back row, left), Brandon Wood, Case Tatum, Colten Lane, Luke Patterson, Jason Kennedy, Jadyn Jenkins, Hudson Tatum, Witten Reinert and assistant coach Aland Price. Courtesy photo
The Faith Academy of Marble Falls tennis program captured the 2026 boys and girls spring state titles of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.
TAPPS officials use a scoring system during the state tournament where results of each match accumulate a team score.
The Flames earned 25.5 points, while The Highlands School had 16.5 for runner-up.
The Lady Flames earned 19 points to claim the team title while McKinney Cornerstone Christian Academy scored 14.5 to be the runner-up.
It’s the first time the Flames and Lady Flames each won the spring team titles in the same year since 2013.
“So it’s happened one other time in school history,” head coach Rich Coleman said.
The boys were paced the doubles teams of Luke Patterson and Jaydn Jenkins, who won the state title, and brothers Case and Hudson Tatum, who finished as the runners-up. Patterson and Jenkins prevailed in the championship match 6-3, 3-6, 10-5.
“That was very cool to watch,” Coleman said. “We happen to have a very well, rounded boys team with a lot of new players. And so when we were deciding who would do singles and who would do doubles, we were able to create two very competitive doubles teams – one of the teams being two brothers and frankly, we didn’t even know who to put as our No. 1 doubles team, because in practice, they would beat each other all the time.”
Patterson and Jenkins also won the regional title. It’s the second state title for Patterson, who partnered with Grant Nagle in 2025.
“Luke has the experience in the TAPPS tournament,” the coach said. “He’s actually a repeat champion. And so he knew the expectation, he knew what the competition was like, and he works on his game all the time. Jayden grew up in tennis.”
Coleman said he was equally proud of what the Tatums, accomplished, too.
“It was both of their first year at Faith Academy, so brand new environment, brand new format, and they were the most fun to watch out of anybody anytime they played,” he said. “They would draw a crowd because they would be yelling at each other to get pumped up. Two tall guys who were great, had great serves and really good at the net, so just very entertaining tennis, a lot of just smashing the ball, so a lot of fun.”
Colten Lane reached the semifinals and Whitten Reinert lost in the first round both in boys singles.
“Whitten is a younger player who’s really picking up his game and his confidence. He’s going to be a really key player for us moving forward as he’s only a sophomore,” Coleman said. “Colton is arguably the best boys player on the whole team. He played doubles his whole career but he turned into a singles player this year. He made that sacrifice because he was our best shot to make a run in the singles bracket. It was a more competitive bracket as most schools put their best, their No. 1 players up in singles, so he had a tougher road, and he just handled it well.”
In girls singles Kate Green and Zoey Wider each reached the quarterfinals, while the doubles team of Ella Lewis and Saige Clowdus reached the semifinals and the team of Halley Offutt and Alyana Reyes reached the quarterfinals.
Coleman said at the beginning of the year, the program “was sweating” since it lost one of its best players to graduation and Emerson Price, who was the No. 1 player in the program, suffered an injury.
“At that point, we were kind of picking up the pieces and deciding if we could still have a chance to compete,” he said. “And we had the remaining girls really step up and put in a lot of work. We had a newcomer this year. She was actually a senior with some tennis experience, Zoey Wider, but just had never played for Faith Academy. And she came out to the team and was a real blessing because she was able to fill in. So we’d still have a six competitive players, even when we lost Emerson.”
The coach noted “the key was getting everybody to qualify for the state tournament to earn enough points.”
“And that’s exactly what they did,” he said. “We had six girls that qualified. Our top girl at that point was Halley Offutt. She’s a senior, she was willing to do doubles and earn more points that way. So she made a team sacrifice and really at the tournament, they all played well. They all won the first round, which pretty much sealed first place for us at that point with the point system. The fact that they all did their job and won at least the first round is what sealed the victory for the team.”
In addition, the program won the team state title in the fall, the first time TAPPS offered such a championship.
“You win as a whole team (in the fall) and in the spring, TAPPS sets it a little differently,” Coleman said. “You can win as a whole girls team, the whole boys team or the players can medal individually. It’s kind of similar to (the University Interscholastic League), how they medal individually, but (in TAPPS) you can also win as a girls team or a boys team in the spring.”
