Nease tennis star Kylie Kochis put a bow on her high school career Wednesday, winning the Class 3A overall singles championship in a thriller.
Kochis, a three-time All-News4JAX selection and player of the year in 2023, had to find another gear with her season on the line, and did with a comeback to beat Tallahassee Leon’s Abra Boonswang 0-6, 7-5, 13-11 to bring home the overall title.
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It’s just the second overall singles title by a Nease player, joining Sierra Poske’s crown in 2004. She’s the seventh local girls player to win an overall singles title, and first since Creekside’s Imani Graham in 2019.
The history is the single-double. Kochis is the first local girls player in area history to win both an overall singles and a doubles championship, which she won with partner Nadia Filer on Tuesday over Jensen Beach.
Duval’s George Yenawine (1922 and ’23), Bolles’ Scott Suhrer (1984) and Bartram Trail’s Brandon Pham (2018) are the only boys players to pull off a singles-doubles title sweep.
Kochis had to claw her way back from a tough start, getting blanked in the first set by Boonswag. She came back to even things, but then went down big in the tiebreak, 8-3. With not even the slightest margin for error, Kochis fought back and finally prevailed in the tiebreak to make history.
“I’m really happy for Kylie. She’s been to the state championships four years in a row. This is an incredible way to end her career and my girls were really battle tested and had to play with immense pressure being the number one seed in the tournament,” said head coach Mike Kypriss.
“My boys [are]all 10th graders [and] finish third, so the future is bright here.”
Kypriss also gave credit to girls program lead Anika Nissen, an All-American at Flagler College, for helping the Panthers get over the final hurdle.
It capped an unforgettable final season for Kochis, who moved to the area in the middle of her freshman year from Pennsylvania and has been a force ever since. She blazed through the season and was seldom even challenged at the No. 1 singles spot, cruising to an unbeaten season.
A day earlier, Kochis and the Panthers won the second team state championship in Nease history with a 5-1 win over Jensen Beach. Nease won the Class 5A crown in 1997. They’d had some excellent teams and players since then, namely Poske, Bethany Benson, Anna Khoor and Katherine Jakeway, but they didn’t have the team depth at Nos. 1-5.
They did this season.
