by Nicole Tieu
Spectators stepping onto the tennis courts on Tuesday would have immediately sensed the intense atmosphere and focus radiating from the players that day. Boys varsity tennis fought through a difficult and aggressive match, finally triumphing over Los Alamitos with a score of 10-8. The Barons redeemed themselves from their only loss this season, when they played the Griffins last month.
Brandon Nguyen (’15) stated, “It feels good. We’ve been working hard to beat Los Al and it’s a relief, but we still want to continue to improve.”
Both sides put in their utmost effort, not wanting to relent any valuable points to their opponent. Sweat poured down the focused players’ faces as they played fierce and competitively. Everywhere on the courts, the energetic players shouted their support and loudly cheered for their teammates. Every point won resulted in screams of triumph and every point called out led to shouts of relief.
Star player John Lieu (’14) did not play the previous match against Los Alamitos due to an injury, but his addition to the team this game proved helpful as he won two of his matches playing at singles, 6-0 and 6-3. Throughout the match, the Barons held on to a slight lead, coming into the final set with a score of 9-8. Both teams gathered around to watch the last match with doubles partners Darren Dinh (’14) and Darrin Nguyen (’14). The long match resulted in a tie breaker win of 9-7 for the boys.
“I think that we [Nguyen and his partner] just pulled through. We had a little extra something that let us win, and all that hard work was finally over,” said Nguyen after his final match.
In the previous years, boys tennis had lost to Los Alamitos numerous times, all with close scores. Their triumph on Monday proved to be the successful results of their hard work. Unfortunately, they needed to win 12-6 or better to be able to win the league title. Instead, they are now placed second, but will have an improved record from last year. There are only a few more games until they go into league finals and the boys will continue to work into CIF.
“We’re ready to now just go do some damage in league. We’re really hoping to get all the spots in the league, that’s what we’ve been working for,” explained head coach Harshul Patel. “And then we have team CIF coming up. Ranking will change, everything will change, and that’ll just really put us up right on the spot.”
