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This has been the most significant week of the season for high school boys’ tennis, a week of nearly historical proportions for two teams and a big step toward a possible semi-historic performance by another.
For Menlo-Atherton, the Bears wrapped up their first PAL Bay Division regular-season title since 1998 with a 7-0 blasting of host Mills on Wednesday. M-A (14-0, 15-3) took a shot at an undefeated league season on Thursday against host Aragon and hit the bullseye with a 7-0 triumph.
For Palo Alto, the Vikings all but wrapped up their first SCVAL De Anza Division regular-season crown since 1994 with a 5-2 victory over first-place Saratoga on Tuesday. Paly (10-1, 18-3) then made the title official with a 7-0 romp over rival Gunn on Thursday.
Menlo School, meanwhile, already has clinched no worse than a tie for the West Bay Athletic League crown and needs only to beat visiting Sacred Heart Prep on Tuesday to win the title outright. However, there are even bigger things on the Knights’ collective plate this season — winning a Central Coast Section team title.
Should Menlo accomplish that, it would give the Knights eight section crowns since team competition began in 1972 and putting them closer to overtaking Gunn, the all-time leader with nine (from 1972-1981).
While reaching that plateau established by a Gunn program that once held the national record with 200 consecutive victories might not be Menlo’s immediate goal, tying or surpassing the Titans certainly puts the Knights into the history books.
Menlo (17-2) took another positive step in that direction Wednesday with an important 5-2 nonleague victory over previously unbeaten Bellarmine (16-1) at the Decathlon Club in Santa Clara. The win essentially moves the Knights ahead of the Bells in the race for the No. 1 seed for the upcoming CCS team tournament.
“I let them celebrate and have a good time,” Menlo coach Bill Shine said of his players, “but I told them the next match (with Bellarmine) is the one that really counts. This is just one step toward our goal, which is to win CCS.”
The Menlo-Bellarmine match was billed as a possible preview of the CCS title match next month, and it’s likely the teams could meet again. All the Knights need to do the next time is play as well as they did Wednesday. Even in their only singles loss — senior Daniel Hoffman’s three-set defeat at No. 1 — the Knights got off to a good start. Hoffman won 20 points in a row during a 6-0 first set. Menlo’s only other loss came at No. 2 doubles, another three-setter.
“The singles were phenomenal and No. 3 doubles came through,” said Shine, hoping to get his team back into the section finals after a semifinal loss last season. “I tell the kids that there’s not a team out there that we can’t beat, if we play well.”
Menlo won at No. 2, 3 and 4 singles as Jamin Ball, Patrick Chase and Max Glenn all won quickly in straight sets, with all finishing in under an hour. That gave Menlo a 3-0 lead. When the No. 3 doubles tandem of Brian Peltz and Jonathan Katzman won 6-4, 6-2, the outcome was decided with three matches still in progress.
“We just hammered them in singles,” said Shine. “But, it was closer than the final score indicated.”
Palo Alto coach Andy Harader brought a handful of his players to watch both teams, figuring the Vikings likely will have to play one or both during the CCS tournament. Paly appears in line for the No. 3 seed now, behind only Menlo and Bellarmine, with defending champion Sacred Heart Prep probably getting the No. 4 seed. The Vikings beat SHP on Monday, 6-1.
There wasn’t much celebrating after Paly defeated Saratoga for the first time this season, perhaps because the Vikings still had Gunn to beat. The other thinking is that Paly knows there are bigger matches ahead and hopes to celebrate something more important than just a league title.
“This was a huge week for us,” said Harader. “I thought we peaked right before spring break, and then we came back and lost to Saratoga and Menlo. Suddenly, we lost all that steam that we had. Now, I like we have it back. This is great momentum going into CCS.”
The last time the Vikings won the De Anza Division crown, they went on to win the CCS title (in 1994). Palo Alto also won CCS titles in 1995 and ’96, even though the Vikings didn’t win the league title those years losing to Monta Vista both times.
Harader gave his team a little pep talk this week, pointing out the sign hanging high on the tennis court fence that Paly received for winning the California High School Boys Tennis Classic this season. The Vikings finished in a three-way tie, losing one match to Saratoga,, but had more tiebreaker points and came away as the champs.
“I pointed to the sign and told them they were champions when they won that,” Harader related. “I said ‘champions are champions.’ ”
The Vikings took that to heart and won their most significant and timely match of the season by beating the Falcons, who finished second in CCS last season.
Palo Alto senior Sam Wong appropriately clinched the victory with a 6-2, 6-3 triumph over Eric Gast at No. 2 singles. For Wong and Paly’s five other seniors, it was their first-ever victory over the Falcons (the teams didn’t play in 2007 when Paly competed in the El Camino Division).
For Wong, the victory was extra special because, before Monday’s match with SHP, an ankle injury had sidelined him for two weeks.
“I was confident after I took the first set, and never looked back,” said Wong. “I’m a captain. I couldn’t let my team down . . . I’m happy to win league my senior year.”
Juniors Grant Audet and Peter Tseng helped make it happen when they rallied for a 6-7, 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 3 doubles. Sophomore Baramee Wongbanchai gave Paly the tiebreaker for the outright league title when his opponent defaulted in the third set, making it 5-2. Saratoga had won the first meeting, 4-3.
Menlo-Atherton’s league matches haven’t been that close, especially this week as the Bears closed in on their long-awaited title. With Menlo in the Bay Division previously, the Bears were always playing for second. This season it was all M-A, which defeated Woodside, Half Moon Bay and Mills by 7-0 scores prior to Thursday’s regular-season finale at Aragon.
Menlo-Atherton was so dominant against Mills that the Bears’ No. 1 and 2 singles plus No. 1 doubles finished their matches in less than 30 minutes. Junior Alec Haley and senior George Horowitz won their matches, 6-0, 6-0, at No. 1 and 2 singles, respectively.
Menlo-Atherton had gotten it done this season with two seniors (Horowitz and Takai Tuionetoa at No. 1 doubles), three juniors (Haley, Avinash Shah and Alden Mitchell), No. 4 singles player sophomore Jonathan Friedman (who was brought up from frosh-soph) and four freshmen in doubles Christian and Jesse Perkins plus Zeke Brown and No. 3 partner Matt Giordano.
“If we win out, going undefeated, it will be ever more sweet because had not Menlo joined the PAL, we would have already had a league title in the 21st century,” said co-head coach Carlos Aguilar. “This will be very sweet!”
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Menlo senior Max Glenn took less than an hour to beat Bellarmine’s Michael Chang, 6-0, 6-2, during the Knights’ 5-2 nonleague tennis triumph on Wednesday. Photo by Keith Peters/Palo Alto Online. -
Palo Alto junior Grant Audet teamed with Peter Tseng to win at No. 2 doubles during the Vikings’ 7-0 victory over Gunn on Thursday, clinching the SCVAL De Anza Division title for Paly. Photo by Keith Peters/Palo Alto Online.
