 | | | Photo Gint Federas | | | | | | The tennis postseason is in full swing and all three Lamorinda boys' teams are rolling along.
On May 1 at the DFAL Championship at Saint Mary's College, Miramonte's Peter Martin and Alex Hwang claimed the doubles title after defeating a duo of Dougherty Valley standouts in three sets. The win gives the senior Martin and the junior Hwang an automatic bid to the NCS Doubles Championship, which begins on May 8 at Chabot College in Hayward.
Before winning the DFAL finals, Martin and Hwang first had to get past senior teammates Neil Weikert and Kyle Rechnitz in the semifinals. Along with senior Bryce Hummer, those four players were the stars for the Mats throughout the campaign.
"My crew, those five guys are off the chain," said head coach Michael McCollom. "These are the spectacular ones. There are other just remarkable young men, but this group, that core is just really, really special."
The crew has brought the program tons of success in recent years. Miramonte won the NCS Team Championship in 2012 and 2013 and was the runner-up last year. With the Doubles Championship and the Team Championship still looming, the Mats once again have big plans.
"We're going to shoot for the finals again. We definitely want to try to get back to the semis at NCS," said McCollom. "I think that would be our main goal and then whether we conquer it again is another story. And so that's what we're hoping for, that we do what we've done repeatedly."
Acalanes, which secured second place in the DFAL regular season standings after beating Campolindo on April 28, also enjoyed an impressive showing on the courts of Saint Mary's. After winning the semifinals in two sets, Kyle Everly advanced to the finals where he ended up losing out 6-2, 6-4. Just a junior, Everly headlines an Acalanes team that promises to be dangerous once again in 2016.
"We have things in place and everybody coming back pretty much," said head coach Stephanee Lawrence. "And I have a lot of incoming freshman. I think as strong as we are this year, we're going to be even stronger next year."
For now, there's plenty of work to be done in the weeks that follow, both for Everly on the individual side and for the entire squad in the NCS Team Championship.
"We're pretty much assured that we'll get not only an at-large berth in the team sections, but we should be seeded second," said Lawrence.
For Campolindo, Tilden Oliver was the top performer during the DFAL Championship. The senior lost to the eventual champ in the semifinals, but then proceeded to win the third-place match in a tiebreaker. Oliver is set to depart the program at the end of the season, but the future looks bright for the Cougars.
"We're in rebuilding mode," explained head coach Eric Peterson after his team ended the season with a 4-8 record in DFAL and a 5-10 mark overall. With 23 players on the JV roster, the Cougars have a flood of promising players on the rise: "The interesting thing about Campo tennis is that we're really deep," said Peterson. "Our JV team does really well." Next year, the Cougars will be looking to replicate that success at the varsity level.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA