After defeating every Foothill League team during the regular season, the Valencia Vikings boys’ tennis team took three of the four finalist spots in the league finals held last week at the Paseo Club.
The doubles championship was an all-Valencia affair that went the way of the senior duo of Tobin Murray and Bardia Ansari-Far. They beat their fellow Vikings, freshman Jake Kim and senior Justin Lavalle, in straight sets, 6-4, 6-0.
“I think it’s always fun when two teams go against each other in a tournament like this,” Valencia head coach Darrell Peries said in a phone interview. “They battled really hard. They know each other’s tendencies because they play each other in practice, but that partnership — Tobin and Bardia have played together all the time, so they were really in tune with each other, for sure.”
In the singles championship, Hart sophomore Nixon Liescheidt took down Valencia freshman Stephen Hernandez, 6-1, 7-5. Liescheidt made the final league match for the second time in as many years after he lost in last year’s final.
“There’s honestly so many factors to his game that just kind of makes him above everybody,” Hart head coach Ramsey Ramirez said in a phone interview. “No. 1, I think, is just his feel for the game, his ability for him to read his opponent and know exactly what they’re going to do, maybe even two or three moves ahead, like he’s playing chess. It’s incredible.”
Peries said he wasn’t surprised that his star freshman was able to make it all the way to the final round of singles given his pedigree in the youth ranks.
“I think Stephen is used to it because he plays a lot of tournaments, like USTA tournaments, so he’s pretty battle tested,” Peries said.
The two singles finalists took different paths to reach the final stage. Liescheidt quickly took down West Ranch junior Ryan Chung in the semifinals, 6-1, 6-0, while Hernandez had to battle through a three-hour semifinal against Hart senior Anthony Lipa.
That semifinal went to a third-set tiebreaker, with Hernandez eventually coming out on top, 5-7, 6-4, 10-8.
Hernandez was granted some additional rest before playing the championship match, and while he was able to come back from a quick loss in the first set to make it tight in the second, Peries said the long day eventually caught up to Hernandez.
“Towards the end of the second set, he was cramping up a bit, and he had to take a medical time out,” Peries said. “But the fact that he was able to still battle, you know, 5-7, against a player like Nixon is pretty big, because I don’t know if anyone has gotten that close this year to him.”
Liescheidt and Hernandez were facing off for the third time this season, with Liescheidt winning all three, including last week’s final. He went undefeated in the regular season for the second consecutive year, and Ramirez thinks he could do the same his entire high school career, barring anything drastic changing in the makeup of the league.
“I think that’s very much the case,” Ramirez said. “You never know, some kid could transfer in from a different school who’s, you know, a prodigy. But the way the league is looking right now, Nixon is that No. 1 guy right now.”
The third-place doubles match was an all-Golden Valley Grizzlies affair, featuring Andrew Yoon and Rowan Andres taking on Nathan Chon and Darin Zareno. The duo of Yoon and Andres was able to take down the other Grizzly duo in straight sets, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5).
The third-place singles match went the way of Chung, 6-2, 6-2.
Qualified teams and individuals are set to compete in the upcoming CIF postseason. The individual sectionals are set to be held on Thursday, May 22, at different sites throughout Southern California based on divisions.
Ramirez is hopeful that Liescheidt can shake off last year’s first-round playoff loss that saw him go up against an opponent who Ramirez felt was just a bad matchup for Liescheidt at the time. But with another year of experience under his belt, the sophomore is gearing up for what could be a long CIF run.
“I think he was probably better than maybe half the guys there at that tournament (last year),” Ramirez said, “and he, unfortunately, just got a really tough first-round matchup … That could happen again, potentially, where he just has a really rough match the first one. Or, you know, I could see him winning a couple and going pretty far.”
