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5-star tennis recruit Audrey Boch-Collins savors time at Clark

Updated August 29, 2018 - 7:38 pm

Audrey Boch-Collins has no desire to play professional tennis. No desire to equal idols and U.S. Open champions Juan Martin del Potro and Sloane Stephens.

She simply hopes for a college scholarship and four more years of the camaraderie that the loneliest of sports so rarely provides.

Boch-Collins, the two-time defending Class 4A state singles champion, attends Odyssey Charter Schools and plays high school tennis for Clark in addition to her arduous individual training.

The junior is a five-star recruit, according to the Tennis Recruiting Network, and competes in national and regional U.S. Tennis Association tournaments against other elite players. She takes a break in the fall to play for the Chargers, with whom she’s never lost a set and enjoys the team atmosphere she’s rarely had.

“I felt like I was missing out with a few things,” Boch-Collins said. “With high school tennis, I get to go to homecoming. I can go to music events. … I started to have a little more of a social life. I fit in a little bit more with the kids.”

Boch-Collins’ parents wanted her to learn a sport that she could play in recreation as an adult, so she chose tennis at age 5. She trained for seven years before playing in and winning her first tournament, intensifying her focus and desire.

In turn, Boch-Collins enrolled at Odyssey, a charter school with online curriculum that allows her to travel and train more laboriously, and made her high school tennis debut for the Chargers in 2016

She still savors time with her teammates, two years and two state championships later.

“Here, if you lose, you lose with your team, and you win with your team,” she said. “It’s almost like a second family.”

Boch-Collins typically trains with a group in the morning at VTM Lorenzi Racket Club. She has private coaching once or twice a week and practices at Clark after completing her homework on weekday afternoons.

She issues personal challenges during matches — like certain shots or footwork to practice — to break up the monotony of her dominance and rarely loses a game while teaching teammates tricks of the trade.

“It’s such an amazing thing because a lot of us are at that high school level,” Chargers sophomore Emily Follmer said. “Audrey, she’s so good, she sets the standard and she just works so hard. Her effort in everything is 100 percent.”

As a result, Boch-Collins occasionally burns out and wants to finish competitive tennis with college. She can hear from Division I coaches starting Saturday and has her sights set on UCLA, Southern California, UC-San Diego or UC-Santa Barbara.

Somewhere in California and somewhere with a tennis team.

“She’s a rock star for everybody,” Clark first-year coach Kevin Lord said. “She really has her eyes on the focus of what she wants to accomplish, and I think that kind of reflects on the whole team. Everybody looks up to her.”

More preps: Follow all of our Nevada Preps coverage online at nevadapreps.com and @NevadaPreps on Twitter.

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.

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