On Tuesday (2/19), the Islander Boys’ Varsity Tennis team played their first match of the season away at La Jolla Country Day School. This match proved to be extremely close, coming down to the two final sets at the end. Playing Line 1 Singles, sophomore Eric Kats took all three of his matches easily against La Jolla’s singles lineup. Kats’ final set scores were 6-2, 6-1, and 6-1. Sophomore Jorge Yañez played Line 2 Singles and defeated Line 2 and 3 Singles, 6-2 and 6-4, respectively. Sophomore Isaac del Rincon struggled in his first set, as he and his opponent went to a tiebreaker at 6-6. With consistency and endurance, del Rincon pulled through in the tiebreaker to win the set 7-6 (4) and took another set off of La Jolla’s Line 2 Singles (6-2).
On the doubles side, Coronado struggled as they were missing one of their strongest doubles players, senior Ryan Wood. Moving up to Line 1 Doubles, Jake Lamb/Andres de la Lama defeated La Jolla’s Line 3 Doubles team, 7-5, dropping the other two sets 1-6 and 3-6. At Line 2 Doubles were Santiago Gonzalez/Nathaniel Nelson, who came close against their Line 3, 6-7 (3). The final score in sets was 8-10.
On Monday (2/25), the Islanders hosted Westview High School for another close match. Unfortunately, Kats and Gonzalez were missing from the lineup, so Wood had to come up from doubles to play Line 2 Singles. Yañez (Line 1 Singles) took two of his three sets, 6-2, against Westview’s Line 1 and 3 Singles. Wood defeated their Line 3 in a quick 6-1 set. Del Rincon, like Yañez, won two sets, falling to Westview’s Line 2 Singles player in a long 4-6 set.
Lamb/de la Lama played at Line 1 Doubles, losing their first set, 4-6, against a tough Westview doubles team. They took their last two sets in easy 6-0 and 6-2 victories. Nicolas Rios/Chris Fisher (Line 2 Doubles) lost all three of their sets, but came close against their Line 2 Doubles team, 4-6. With only two sets in doubles, the Islanders took their second loss of the season, 7-11.
To conclude their week, the team traveled to Bishop’s and decided to change the strategy in their lineup. Normally, a team would place their strongest players in singles. Knowing that Bishop’s has a strong singles lineup, the Islanders put their strongest players in doubles to dominate that part of the lineup. Unfortunately, Bishop’s did the same, and Coronado won only five out of the nine doubles sets. Kats (Line 1 Singles) won two of his three sets, resulting in another 7-11 loss for the Islanders.
The team currently holds a record of no wins to three losses.
Upcoming Matches:
- Wednesday, March 6 vs. Vincent Memorial High School @ 3:00 PM (Home)
- Thursday, March 7 vs. Mira Mesa High School @ 3:30 PM (Away)
