Pine Crest’s Marsh, Aquinas’ Carol Deopsomer are Broward tennis coaches of the year

They brought home Broward County’s two team tennis titles this season.

So it’s only natural that Pine Crest’s Corey Marsh and St. Thomas Aquinas’ Carol Deopsomer are the Miami Herald’s Tennis Coaches of the Year for the county. Marsh guided the Pine Crest boys to a Class 2A title, while Deopsomer led Aquinas to yet another Class 3A championship.

This was the third boys’ state title for Pine Crest and second in as many years. The Panthers swept Jacksonville Bolles 4-0 in the state quarterfinals and held off Mast Academy 4-2 in the semifinals before shutting out Satellite 4-0 in the championship game.

“I give our boys full credit for putting ‘we’ before ‘I’, which is hard to do in an individual sport,” Marsh said. “They proved they are elite tennis players and even better teammates.”

St. Thomas Aquinas, meanwhile, won its 12th overall girls’ state tennis title, tied with Cardinal Gibbons for the second most and one behind Miami Beach for the most under the FHSAA.

But it was the Raiders’ first team title since winning four in a six-year span from 2003-2008.

St. Thomas Aquinas finished a perfect season by not dropping a single match at state, winning 6-0 against Tallahassee Leon in the quarterfinals, 5-0 against Naples Barron Collier in the semifinals and 4-0 against St. Petersburg in the championship.

“It’s been a while for us,” Deopsomer, who has been Aquinas’ coach since 1995, said after winning the title. “But we proved we have a really strong team, one through five.”