For the first time since 2019, the Valencia Vikings boys’ tennis team is the champion of the Foothill League.
After beating the visiting Golden Valley Grizzlies at Valencia High School on Tuesday, 11-7, the Vikings finished the league campaign with an undefeated record, and just one loss overall.
Playing without its top singles player on Tuesday in senior Justin Lavalle, Valencia (16-1, 12-0) lost two of its first three singles matches but swept the first round of doubles matches. The Vikings found their rhythm as the match went on, though, going 7-2 in doubles overall and 3-3 the rest of the way in singles.
“It’s always antsy in the beginning,” Valencia head coach Darrell Peries said in a phone interview. “Especially, we were missing Justin, who’s one of our top singles players, and Golden Valley is a good team — they got strong singles, they’re well coached. So, I mean, tennis, anything could happen, especially with a team like that.”
Valencia had beaten Golden Valley (16-3, 7-3) earlier in the season, 15-3, but Tuesday’s match was tight until the end. Grizzlies head coach Josh Stimac said in a phone interview that watching his team challenge Valencia throughout Tuesday’s contest was good to see.
“It’s really nice to know that my guys can step up to the occasion, that they can rise to the occasion,” Stimac said.
Stephen Hernandez went 3-0 in singles for Valencia, while Joshua Cho went 1-1. The doubles team of Far Bardia Ansari and Tobin Murray went 3-0, and Jake Kim and Noah Yu went 2-1. Gavin Andrada and Jason Lee combined to go 2-0 in doubles.
Peries said he likes to utilize all of his players, rather than just trotting out the same guys for each round, because he feels that all of them are capable of playing well.
“That’s the key to a tennis team,” Peries said, “especially because even if you had, like, a 10 (universal tennis rating) or, you know, 12 UTR, the rest of your team has to be good, because one player can only get three points … We like to focus on developing everybody. That’s one of our main things.”
Golden Valley saw Andrew Yoon, who Peries said is one of the top singles players in the league, go 2-1, as did Rowan Andres.
Golden Valley still has two league matches left, on Thursday at home against West Ranch, the only other team besides Valencia to beat the Grizzlies in the league this season, and Monday at Hart. The Grizzlies are likely to finish either second or third in the league standings depending on the results of those final two matches.
“I had a feeling coming in, based upon who I had coming back, that we would be pretty decent,” Stimac said.
Valencia is done with league play and is looking forward to a non-league match Thursday at home against Brentwood School, which Peries said is one of the top teams in all of Southern California and should prepare the Vikings for next week’s league finals set to be held at the Paseo Club on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“I think it’s going to keep us sharp,” Peries said, “because it can be easy for guys to kind of let their guard down, and because they finished so strong, they may relax a little bit and feel like these other players are not going to put up a fight. But you got to be ready for anything. So I think us playing Brentwood on Thursday is going to be really good for us. I hope, as long as all these guys stay healthy physically, then I think us playing Brentwood is a good thing for us.”
