Even though the boys’ varsity tennis team was the underdog going into the MCAL finals, they were able to pull off a 5-4 win over undefeated Justin-Sienna to win their third consecutive championship.

 

“Justin-Sienna had won every match their whole season,” said Saam Arzang, team captain. “They just basically lost when it counted most.”

 After graduating 12 seniors last year, the team had to focus on every single match in the final.

 “We wanted to surprise some people by winning and we had the chance to do that,” coach Nick Hoppe said. “We had to do what we came to do.”

The championship came down to the last doubles match played by Jay Bhayani and Mark Dulebohn. Although the first day of play was suspended by rain the boys went back the next day with only one thing on their mind, a win.

“It started raining the first day, and we were down a couple matches,” Dulebohn said. “The next day we came back and as a team won some matches so it was tied 4-4 . Then Jay and I stuck out our doubles match to win the MCAL final.”

Arzang said the win was the highlight of the season.

“I really wanted to finish the season out on top,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave Redwood not winning the MCAL title.”

Arzang attributes the 19-6 season to the playing ability of the team as a whole.

“What made us better was we were a deep team,” he said. “A lot of the other teams just had a couple good players. We were solid down the line.”

Arzang and Hoppe both agreed that the key to their postseason success was the doubles matches.

“Our doubles teams got us through the postseason. They were real strong,” Hoppe said.  “We needed to sweep the doubles in order to win.”

Arzang also attributes their success to the lower ranked players.

“Even though some of the top players lost their MCAL matches, it was really the last few guys who were really able to stick it out and win it for the team,” Arzang said.

Hoppe said the biggest problem was finding the right lineups.

“We were working hardest at trying to put together a lineup that would work for us,” Hoppe said. “We didn’t know who was going to play where. We had to figure that out and find everyone their spot.”

This was the first time in Hoppe’s four years of coaching when there were no ranked players on the roster.

“It was hard losing players like Drew Kells or Connor Berg,” Dulebohn said. “I just wanted to prove that we didn’t need a ranked player to win.”

Hoppe said that in the past the team was always at the top and very dominant in the MCAL.

Arzang added that it was more satisfying than past years because everybody contributed to the wins.

“In previous years we had guaranteed wins, so winning this year was really rewarding,” he said.

Even though the team will graduate four seniors this year, Hoppe has high hopes for the future.

“We have a good core for next year,” he said. “They are going to be strong in years to come. We will be contenders again.”