Alex Kempf always hears it: work hard and the effort will pay off. The end result makes all the hours training in oppressive heat feel like the sacrifice is worth it.

    But what if there is no championship? What if a season ends short of the ultimate goal and someone else is standing on the podium accepting your trophy? That title was supposed to mean you’re the best. It says no one is better, worked harder, pushed themselves further or demanded more from their bodies, mentally or physically.

    Hard work is supposed to pay off in a championship and no one wants to feel the pain when it doesn’t.

    For the Idaho State Journal’s girls tennis players of the year, however, that’s a moot point because Century’s Sydney McRoberts and Kempf won the girls doubles title and helped the Diamondbacks claim the team championship for the second time in three years.

    The two juniors have worked for years to reach this point. Now they can definitively say, yes, the sacrifice to be great is, in fact, all worth it.

    “You hear that all the time, ‘Oh just work hard. Put all your effort into it, all 100 percent, and you’ll get it,’” Kempf said. “Then to actually have that work unfold in front of you ... was just great.”

    McRoberts and Kempf are both multi-sport athletes for Century. McRoberts has started for the Diamondback soccer team three years and played basketball. The past two seasons, Kempf has been part Century’s four straight volleyball championships.

    They’re winners. The Idaho High School Activities Association recently named McRoberts as a Interscholastic Star Student, a prestigious $1,000 scholarship to the college of her choice.

    But for both, winning a doubles tennis title was special. It’s a sport they love.

    “It was so great because Syd and I have just worked at tennis for such a long time,” Kempf said.

    Kempf and McRoberts played together as freshman but split apart as sophomores. Kempf reached the state tournament in singles and McRoberts took second in Idaho’s 4A mixed doubles with Nate Kleist.

    Century head coach Sean Kane threw the dynamite duo back together in 2014. From the very beginning of the season, Kane told them they were good enough to win state.

    And the girls played along, even if they didn’t totally believe it themselves.

    “Our coach was the one who told us at the beginning of the season, ‘You guys have a good chance at winning state. Don’t think you guys are worthless. You guys have a really good chance,’” McRoberts said. “Me and Alex were just like, ‘OK, whatever.’ We joked ... about it the whole season.”

    The more they won, though, the more they started to believe. McRoberts and Kempf went 15-0 in the regular season and then cruised to a 5A 5-6 District championship and the overall No. 1 seed at state.

    But Kempf went down with strep throat two days before their first state tournament match. McRoberts was already dealing with a foot issue from soccer in the fall, an injury that forced her into a boot for five months and was a constant source of pain.

    Between McRoberts’ bum foot and Kempf’s raspy throat, they were a banged up squad. But they lucked out, winning their first two matches in quick fashion, 6-0, 6-0; 6-0, 6-1.

    McRoberts iced her foot whenever she could between matches and Kempf drank all the liquids she could muster.

    Neither complained and no one ever brought up the fact that Kempf could barely talk. They were driven to win.

    “That’s what I really wanted to focus on, just (a) positive attitude,” Kempf said.

    McRoberts added: “I had to push through this foot pain a lot this season. It was really tough. ... But the foot pain, I just kind of got used to it.”

    It didn’t matter what obstacles they might have smashed into, Kempf and McRoberts would have found a way. They wanted no business discovering whether the hard work would have been worth it without the ultimate prize.

    Their coach thought they’d never even have to answer.

    “I knew they were going to be one of the best doubles teams in Idaho,” Kane said. “... Almost every day in practice I told the girls, ‘You know, you have one of the best chances to be one of the best teams in the state.’ Somet imes you have to play like you’re going to win it. I wanted them to know that every day.”