CARY — Ask Maggie Thornton if she thought she’d have been at the NCHSAA 2A Women’s Tennis State Championships six months ago and you’ll be met with a bashful smile and a shake of the head.
Before this season, the Jordan-Matthews sophomore hadn’t played a lick of competitive tennis. She didn’t even consider playing for the Jets as a freshman — too busy with marching band, she said.
But earlier this year, with COVID-19 still lingering, Thornton found some time in her schedule and decided to give it a shot. She’d played tennis recreationally as a kid, after all, and had always enjoyed it.
“I was like, ‘Well, I don’t really have much else to do,’” she said. “‘And I think it’d be fun.’”
She didn’t think she’d be here. Fast forward to Friday, though, and there she was, at the NCHSAA 2A Women’s Tennis State Championships at Cary Tennis Park, one of four sophomores to qualify for the 16-person singles tournament. Though Thornton lost in the first round to Oak Grove’s Jessica Fuchs, 6-0, 6-1, her coach, Nia Marsh-Pope, says just to make it to states — in her first season of high school tennis, remember — is a feat in itself.
“In the next couple of years, she could easily come back here,” Marsh-Pope said, gesturing to the rows of pristine courts. “But as far as expectations for her first year? She shot them through the roof.”
Thornton, who’s “never really considered [herself] to be really good,” qualified thanks to an impressive showing in last week’s 2A Mideast regionals, one that saw her nab wins against Carrboro sophomore Anna Horton (6-2, 6-1) and Fairmont senior Kiley Oxendine (6-0, 6-0). In the semifinals, she lost to that tournament’s No. 1 seed, Whiteville’s Anna Smith, but showed enough to qualify for states — something that came as a surprise.
“When we finished and got ready to go, I told her I’d see her on Saturday, she looked at me and said, ‘Did I just qualify for states?’ and I said, ‘Yes you did,’” Marsh-Pope told the News + Record last week. “For this to be her first year playing competitively, and to get to the level of going to states, that day on Saturday it just kind of all came full circle, like, ‘Oh my god, I really did do this.’”
“I just thought I was going to play, have fun during the season and just be done,” Thornton added. “I did not think I was going to come here. I didn’t even think I was going to go to regionals. I didn’t really know that that was a thing.”
High school sports expert or not, Thornton earned her spot at states, held at the lavish park named the United States Tennis Association’s Featured Facility in 2019. It was there, sandwiched between two other courts near the back of the complex, that Thornton took on Fuchs, a top seed in the tournament and a nationally ranked recruit.
“Yeah, I was nervous, I’m always nervous,” she admitted. “I was pretty overwhelmed when I got here, fish-out-of-water kind of thing.”
After dropping the first set, 6-0, Thornton seemed to settle down and was able to take a game off of Fuchs, even sneaking a glance and a shy wave at the crowd after a slick return for a point. The turning point, she said, was realizing that she was playing with house money, an underclassman who had nothing to lose and wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.
Thornton plans to play tennis again next year — “I do have marching band, but I’m going to try to work around that,” she said hopefully. In the meantime, she’s going to keep her hopes low and focus on the day-to-day.
“I don’t really want to set huge goals for myself, because then if I don’t accomplish them, it really will get me down,” she said. “So I just want to see what happens, I guess, and next year, just do my best.”
But for Marsh-Pope, on the other hand, the sky’s the limit for her sophomore star. The head coach knew Thornton was something special, she says, when she came back from a 7-4 deficit in a match against Providence Grove earlier this season, winning 11-9. She credited the comeback to Thornton’s indefatigability — she plays soccer and basketball, too — and an unwillingness to give up.
Now, she hopes, Thornton will take those traits — and, hopefully, some confidence from her state tournament showing — and run with them.
“When I saw that in her, I said, ‘I think she’ll go pretty far,’” Marsh-Pope said. “She (doesn’t) even realize it yet, but I think she will.’”