UIL State Tennis
Zein, Sriniketh capture singles State Championships
Joshua Koch
May 23, 2018, 8:32 pm
COLLEGE STATION - Heading into the day there was no doubt that Houston would be walking away with gold.
The Class 6A girls and boys singles title matches had Houston-area talent on both sides of the net.
Fort Bend Dulles' Marlee Zein followed in her older sister Miriam's footsteps and won the 6A Girls Singles State Championship in her senior season with a 6-3, 6-2 straight-set victory against Cypress Ranch's Melissa LaMette.
"Personally I just think it's really cool because it's for my school," Zein said. "It represents my school. All of the people were cheering for me back at home. It just makes it that much more important. It's exciting."
The last time Dulles tennis won a girls singles state title was in 2012 when Miriam Zein accomplished the feat.
Marlee, who is signed to go to the University of Florida, leaves Dulles as a two-time state medalist. In her freshman year she took silver in girls singles, then stepped away from high school tennis for her sophomore and junior years before returning this season.
"We're all very proud of her," Fort Bend Dulles coach Patty Priddy said. "She's worked very hard for a very long time. You don't get the ratings she does without doing that."
Marlee is the first girl to win a singles title since Clear Lake's Janice Shin in 2014.
On the boys side it was a rematch of the Region III-6A title match as Katy Tompkins' Anish Sriniketh and Pearland Dawson's Kevin Zhu collided.
The duo took the match to a decisive third set but just like in the regional final, Sriniketh was able to best Zhu taking the match 2-1 (7-6 (7-1), 4-6, 6-3).
Sriniketh is the first-ever tennis player from Tompkins, boy or girl, to capture a tennis state title.
"It just means a lot," Sriniketh said. "We're a really new school, this is our fifth year, so it's great to be the first one to do anything to be honest. It's just a great feeling."
Sriniketh, who didn't make it out of the District 19-6A tennis tournament last season, used the disappointment from that to fuel his title run this year.
In the regional final against Zhu, Sriniketh didn't take a set from him but that wasn't the story on Friday.
"Today was unbelievable," Sriniketh said. "I believed in myself and wow. I'm speechless actually."
Sriniketh is the first boy from Houston to win a singles title since Stratford's Josh Holloway did it in 2015 capturing the 5A boys singles state title.
This is the first time since 2014 that Houston has captured the UIL's highest classification's girls and boys singles titles. Shin and Katy Taylor's Peter Leung won the 5A girls and boys singles state championship that season, respectively.
Houston center fielder Jake Meyers was removed from Wednesday night’s game against Cleveland during pregame warmups because of right calf tightness.
Meyers, who had missed the last two games with a right calf injury, jogged onto the field before the game but soon summoned the training staff, who joined him on the field to tend to him. He remained on the field on one knee as manager Joe Espada joined the group. After a couple minutes, Meyers got up and was helped off the field and to the tunnel in right field by a trainer.
Mauricio Dubón moved from shortstop to center field and Zack Short entered the game to replace Dubón at shortstop.
Meyers is batting .308 with three homers and 21 RBIs this season.
After the game, Meyers met with the media and spoke about the injury. Meyers declined to answer when asked if the latest injury feels worse than the one he sustained Sunday. Wow, that is not a good sign.
Asked if this calf injury feels worse than the one he sustained on Sunday, Jake Meyers looked toward a team spokesman and asked "do I have to answer that?" He did not and then politely ended the interview.
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) July 10, 2025
Lack of imaging strikes again!
The Athletic's Chandler Rome reported on Thursday that the Astros didn't do any imaging on Meyers after the initial injury. You can't make this stuff up. This is exactly the kind of thing that has the Astros return-to-play policy under constant scrutiny.
The All-Star break is right around the corner, why take the risk in playing Meyers after missing just two games with calf discomfort? The guy literally fell to the ground running out to his position before the game started. The people that make these risk vs. reward assessments clearly are making some serious mistakes.
The question remains: will the Astros finally do something about it?