Every Thursday, Nevada Sports Net will spotlight one local as our “Female Athlete of the Week,” a feature presented in partnership with IBEW Local 401. Learn more about this week’s honoree below.
Mackenzie Chase and Vanessa Hollenback
Local link: Spanish Springs High seniors
Sport: Tennis
Tennis accolades: Mackenzie Chase and Vanessa Hollenback are three-sport athletes at Spanish Springs competing in tennis, lacrosse and basketball. Chase and Hollenback are chasing a doubles three-peat at the 4A state tennis championships that start Friday at Bishop Manogue. The duo won the Northern 4A’s “Doubles Team of the Year” honor last season while earning all-region first-team honors. Hollenback and Chase are two-time 4A Northern girls doubles regional title winners. Spanish Springs’ fifth-year boys and girls tennis head coach Morgan Bishop said the duo has been one of the major keystones in helping make the girls program so strong the last few seasons. Chase and Hollenback have a chance to make history as a three-time doubles state champion. Per the NIAA record book, there are seven duos with at least three individual doubles state championships in Nevada prep tennis history.
Recent success: Chase and Hollenback helped the Spanish Springs’ girls program to a perfect 10-0 team record during league play to secure the No. 1 seed at regionals. The duo fell to Bishop Manogue’s Laila Atwell and Ivy Huff in doubles during team regional semifinals, but defeated Atwell and Huff during individual regional finals to secure back-to-back individual 4A regional crowns. Chase and Hollenback are two of four Spanish Springs girls tennis players to represent the Cougars at the individual 4A state tournament along with the No. 1 and No. 2 singles players, Addison Bowers and Khloe LaFrance.
Quote to note: “The past few years it’s been pretty epic and pretty awesome for what they’ve done and how much they’ve progressed and gotten better,” head coach Morgan Bishop said. “I think being at their senior year, it’s been a little bit more pressure put on them to perform, and the community knows how successful they’ve been. I think the biggest challenge this year is not their capability or their ability to perform, it’s more the mental capacity of being able to navigate the pressures of getting another championship. Those are things that we’ve been working on and talking about the past couple weeks. I think they’re pretty confident and we’re pretty confident they’ll be able to do it again.”