Markos bros. enjoy final season as Bruins

The Markos name has been an important one in recent years with the University School of Jackson tennis program.

This is the final year the family will have players on the team, as twin brothers George and Paul are seniors with the Bruins.

And it’s one they’re enjoying as much as they can since they didn’t get to play together in 2015, and it appears this will be the final year they will play together.

“We just take it one game and one practice or workout at a time and just enjoy being out there with each other and with our friends,” said George, who’s part of a defending Division II-A doubles champion team with teammate Cade Reasons and recently committed to play college tennis at North Alabama.

Paul admits he’s needed to work a little rust off his game after not having played much in 2015. He wasn’t even a student at USJ last year.

“I needed to step away and take a break,” Paul said about his yearlong transfer to Crockett County High School. “I wanted to get away from what I’d known, and I needed that.

“I came back this year having missed the game of tennis and just being here at USJ. It’s been good to be back.”

Paul has no plans to play tennis in college, but he does have a good idea of what he wants to do. He plans to pursue possible ROTC programs wherever he attends college.

But for now, the focus for the pair is on USJ tennis and trying to win a state championship.

While the Bruins are in contention for the championship every year, this year looks like it could be a great time to compete for the championship.

Knoxville Webb, which won the past few championships, has a younger team this year that lost a lot of its talent last year with a lot of seniors who competed at Spring Fling.

USJ is playing as well as anybody on this end of the state with big wins over all of the competitive teams, including a shutout of St. George’s this past Monday at home. They enter team tournament play next week as the postseason begins the road to Murfreesboro and the state championships.

“We just need to approach every game as if it could be our last, because once the tournament starts, it could be,” Paul said. “Everybody’s playing for the same goal, and we all want to win it.”

George added he and his brother have extra motivation.

“It’s been a few years since USJ won the team championship, and our brother (James-Roland) was an eighth-grader,” George said. “So we’d like to get one, too, before we’re done.”

Brandon Shields, 425-9751