Crescenta Valley boys’ tennis doubles up Burbank
Entering the final week of the regular season, the Crescenta Valley High and Burbank boys’ tennis teams had already locked up playoff berths.
Still, the Falcons and Bulldogs have plenty to play for before beginning the league tournament and CIF playoffs. The teams met Tuesday in a Pacific League match looking to shore up their level of play.
Crescenta Valley flourished in singles, winning eight sets en route to a 10-5 victory.
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Crescenta Valley (10-5, 9-1 in league) trails first-place Arcadia, ranked fourth in CIF Southern Section Division I, by one match heading into Thursday’s showdown between the teams at Crescenta Valley, which lost its first meeting against the Apaches, 17-1. Burbank (8-5, 7-4) is locked into third place and will wrap up the regular season at home Thursday against cross-town rival Burroughs. A win by the Bulldogs on Tuesday would’ve likely set up a tie for second.
“Right now we’re No. 2 in league and we’ve done some real good things,” said Crescenta Valley Coach Sam Hyun, whose team posted a 12-6 win at Burbank on March 16. “We’ll see what we can do Thursday, but I’m proud of the way they are working and that they keep on improving.
“Hopefully, we’ll get a good draw for the playoffs. We’ve been playing very well in singles and we’re coming around in doubles.”
Crescenta Valley received two wins apiece in singles from Kevin Rowe (7-5, 6-2), Charlie Kim (6-0, 6-2) and Amos Ro (6-2, 6-2). The Falcons also got one win each from Terry Shin (6-4) and Adi Srivanan (6-4).
“I’m happy with where we are right now,” said Rowe, a senior. “We lost a lot of players to graduation, so we were looking to shoot for at least second place.
“Our singles guys are playing very well and our doubles teams continue to make progress. It’s been a great year and we still have a lot of tennis left to play.”
The Falcons got two doubles wins from Edward Ahn and Darren Kim (6-1, 6-3).
Burbank got two wins each in doubles from Luciano DuPuetto and Nathan Soria (6-4, 6-3) and Sid Denduluri and Ethan Lee (6-4, 7-5). The Bulldogs received a 6-3 win from Alejandro Ramos and Emory Kim.
“I thought we did well today,” Burbank Coach Loi Phan said. “We had some new guys in doubles and that’s where we got our wins.
“We still have a pretty young team, but we were able to make it to the playoffs. We’ll look to use our last match and the prelims next week to help us get ready for the playoffs.”
The coaches agreed to end the match with three sets still yet to complete after Crescenta Valley had clinched the victory.
The league prelims will be held Monday at Pasadena High and the league final will take place May 3 at the same location.
The CIF Southern Section office will unveil its playoff pairings for all five divisions on May 8. Crescenta Valley and Burbank are in Division II.
Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich
