La Cañada boys’ tennis zips past Crescenta Valley
LA CRESCENTA — With a surplus of depth, perhaps the La Cañada High boys’ tennis team is in position to challenge for the Rio Hondo League championship.
The Spartans return most of their starting lineup following a second-place finish in league last season behind power San Marino. Before the Spartans begin league play in late March, they are using the beginning of the season to see how their depth will be able to test their opponents.
La Cañada got some more answers Tuesday after it posted a 12-6 nonleague win at Crescenta Valley.
“It’s good to have that kind of depth because you have so many options available to you,” La Cañada Coach Will Moravec said. “It also means that I have lot of faith in them in that they can do the job in singles or doubles.
“We had some tough matches in the first round today that could have gone either way. We have some experienced players who know how to get those close wins and that proved to be big today.”
La Cañada (3-1) held a 6-0 lead as Lucas Chmielewski and Phillip Lam teamed up for a tough 7-5 win to help the Spartans sweep the Falcons (3-1) in the opening round. The duo fought off match-point before completing their victory
“We were down late and had to make a run at it,” Chmielewski said. “It got to match-point and we knew what we needed to do.
“It’s great to have the depth that we have, because it can give you a little bit more of a cushion. Some guys can play doubles so that others can go in and play singles. We think that can be a strength.”
La Cañada received victories in singles from William Lam (6-2, 6-4), JP McKenzie (6-4, 6-1) and Reid Shreck (6-4, 6-1).
The Spartans got wins in doubles from Chmielewski and Lam (7-5, 6-0), Alec Robertson and Ian Lee (6-0, 6-2) and Cyrus Chen and Sasha Vilasov (6-1, 6-2).
Crescenta Valley, which finished second in the Pacific League behind Arcadia, got one win each in singles from reigning All-Area honoree Kevin Rowe (6-0), Amos Ro (6-3) and Edward Ahn (6-2).
The Falcons received doubles victories from Charlie Kim and Darren Kim (6-3) and Terry Shin and Aditya Saravanan (6-1). Crescenta Valley got its other victory in doubles by default.
“La Cañada has a very good team with a lot of depth,” said Crescenta Valley Coach Sam Hyun, who was tabbed the All-Area Boys’ Tennis Coach of the Year last season. “We had a couple of tough losses in the first round and we dropped a couple of tough points. We’ll just have to practice harder and maybe make some adjustments in doubles.”
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Charles Rich, charles.rich@latimes.com
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
