By Kristine Michaels, Special to the Independent
Laguna Beach’s boys’ varsity tennis team, led by Coach Peter Davidson, proved themselves worthy competitors to earn a spot in the CIF Division IV finals, a season-ending match Wednesday, June 1, at the Claremont Tennis Club.
Finishing league as undefeated Orange Coast League champions was easy for the Breakers. They demonstrated their dominance during league matches and at the individual league championships sweeping the top three singles and doubles championship spots.
The rigorous non-league matchups showed that the Breakers can compete with the top teams from any division.
The Breakers overall 14-7 record does not reflect the tight match-ups they had with top-notch, non-league competitors.
Coach Davidson led his Breakers to breeze their way to the finals of the Div 4 Finals with wins over Orcutt Academy 17-1, Lynwood 16-2, Alhambra 14-4 and Santa Ynez 14-4. They are well prepared both mentally and physically for a rematch against the defending Div 4 champions Viewpont High School. Last year the two met at the semi finals where Viewpont won a close match 10-8 against the Breakers. The Breakers are not stranger to the Claremont Courts where the CIF championship match will be held. The Breakers reached the finals for the first time in 26 years against Cerritos in 2010. This time the Breakers are prepared to claim victory.
CIF Division IV Semi Final Result: LBHS 14 – Santa Ynez 4
On Tuesday, May 24, the Breakers defeated Santa Ynez Union High 14-4, and continued their dominance on the Pirates home courts with a huge home crowd turnout. The Breakers came out of round one winning all six matches. In singles, # 1 Jake Michaels, # 2 Teague Hamilton and # 3 Austin Loomis held strong ground winning their matches 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 respectively. The doubles matches were extremely tight where both # 1 Hutton McKenna and Bonito Romeo and # 2 Owen Weber and Morgan Lebby refused to give into the tough competition and held strong for their victories at 7-5 each. # 3 Taylor Davidson and Nick Le played well and came up on top of a 6-2 battle.
Round 2, the Pirates came out fighting hard and took three wins against # 1 singles Jake Michaels and # 3 Singles Austin Loomis and # 3 Doubles Taylor Davidson and Nick Le. The Breakers did not waiver as the match score going into round three was 9-3 and they only needed one more to secure the victory. The Breakers wrapped up round 3 with ease winning 5 out of the 6 matches.
Sweeps came from # 2 Singles – Teague Hamilton (6-1, 6-0, 6-2), # 1 doubles Hutton McKenna/Bonito Romeo (7-5, 6-3, 6-1) and # 2 doubles Owen Webber/Morgan Lebby (7-5, 6-3, 6-2)
