Experienced Rainwater, newcomer Escamilla both make semifinals
   by Chirs Gove ~ Odessa American ~ Thursday, April 28, 2005 

Bryan Rainwater and Treena Escamilla don't have much in common on their tennis resumes, but that doesn't mean their goals were any different Wednesday during the opening rounds of the Region I-3A Tennis Championships.

They also ended up in the same spot -- in the tournament's semifinals, Rainwater in boys singles and Escamilla in girls singles.

Rainwater is a senior at Fort Stockton and is making his third consecutive appearance at Regionals.

Escamilla, meanwhile, is a senior at Monahans but is making her first regional appearance.  She's unseeded, but won a pair of tree-set matches to earn her unexpected bid in the semis.

When she completed a 7-5, 1-6, 6-2 victory against Gainesville's Jessica Lopez in the quarterfinals, Escamilla fell to her knees in delight while several members of her family celebrated the accomplishment.

"They want it just as bad as I do for me," Escamilla said, "It's my senior year and I want to get as far as I possibly can."

Simply making the semifinals is a good result for Escamilla, though Rainwater has good reason to feel like he's got some work left to do.

Rainwater has advanced to the second day each of the last two years in boys doubles, but has yet to record a victory past the quarterfinals.

"I Felt like the past two years I should've gone on both years," Rainwater said. "This year, it's all on me."

The top two finishers in each draw today -- boys singles, girls singles, boys doubles and girls doubles -- will qualify for the UIL State Tennis Championships.

Rainwater said he picked singles in a large part this season because he wanted to be fully responsible for whatever the final results will be.

"I've been working for this all year," said the senior, who did not drop a game in his two matches. "It's all I've been doing. It's all I've been talking about since last year."

The third-seeded Fort Stockton senior will face second-seeded Scott Milner of Borger in one boys singles semifinal today, while defending regional and 3A state champ Luke Hawk of Clyde plays Carrollton Ranchview's Gino Villanueva in the other.

Villanueva is an exchange student from Chile, just like the top seed in the girls singles draw, Cammilla Miranda of Graham. Miranda will be the opponent today in the semifinals against Monahans' Escamilla, who looked like she could've been on her way out of the tournament after splitting sets against Gainesville's Lopez.

Escamilla pulled out the first set but then fell victim to a rash of errors while losing the second set 6-1.

But she broke Lopez four times while pulling out the third set during eight tense games.

"That sometimes happens to me," Escamilla said.  "I try and i try, but I just have a bad set. I just went out there, got cooled off and just pretended like it was a fresh new start."