Samohi Boys Tennis Falls in Southern Section Finals

It was double trouble for the boys tennis team in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 championship match at The Claremont Club on Wednesday.

The third-seeded Vikings (13-5) lost eight of nine doubles sets and that proved to be their undoing in a 10-8 defeat to top-seeded Palm Desert (21-1).

"The plan panned out—it was all about the first round," six-year Samohi coach Wilston Poon said. "Our No. 3 doubles team lost 7-5 and Connor Treacy's match could've gone either way. Spirits were high. We stayed in it to the bitter end." 

Treacy, one of only three seniors on the Vikings squad, lost 9-7 in a tiebreaker to the Aztecs' Abe Hewko in a matchup of No. 1 singles players. Treacy went on to win his last two sets, 6-1, 6-2.

"I'd never played him before. Towards the end I decided I was just going to go for my shots," said Treacy, who will continue his tennis career at Cal Lutheran next year. "Even if I lost, I knew I had to break him down enough so he wouldn't have much left for the last two sets."

Hewko was indeed spent, losing to both Cristobal Rivera and Conrad McKinnon by 6-2 scores in subsequent rounds. Rivera fell behind 3-0 to Austin Graham but won the next four games on the way to sweeping his three sets at No. 2 as the Vikings notched seven of the nine singles points. 

"Connor and I are good friends, and we knew we had to do our part in singles," Rivera said. "If he wins that tiebreaker, maybe it changes things, but to win CIF you've got to have a team effort."

Treacy was the victim of a questionable call at the end of the tiebreaker but he refused to use that as an excuse. "I can't blame [the loss] on one point," he said. "I shouldn't have put myself in that situation."

The Vikings were behind 8-4 after two rotations of the round robin format and were too far behind in games, meaning they needed to win five of six sets in the final rotation to pull off the upset against the Desert Valley League champions. 

"We needed one doubles win in the last round and we couldn't get it," Poon said. "Palm Desert is really strong in doubles and we knew it coming in. Their doubles has gotten them to the finals three times now."

The No. 2 duo of Alex Baettig and Zach Resnick scored the Vikings' lone doubles point with a 7-5 victory over Palm Desert's No. 3 tandem of Ben Gelfand and Peter Harding. 

In the semifinals, Samohi had routed second-seeded Arcadia 15-3 and its doubles teams had played a huge part in the victory. On Wednesday, though, the Vikings did not have a balanced effort.

"We were somewhat of a sleeper team all season," Poon said. "We had real high expectations for ourselves, but other teams didn't know much about us and it might have worked to our advantage."

It was Samohi's first finals appearance since 1966, when they won their last section title under Glenn Bassett, who went on to coach at UCLA from 1967-93.