Edison boys’ tennis earns big win at Huntington Beach
Members of the Edison High boys’ tennis team gathered on a doubles court at Huntington Beach High early Thursday evening, huddled around a laptop.
Adam Vo, a senior on the team, was checking his email. But these weren’t ordinary emails — they were college acceptance emails that could change his future.
Teammates cheered as Vo found out that he got into UC Berkeley and Cornell University. In a way, it showed the togetherness of this Chargers group. Edison has two freshmen in its starting lineup, but that doesn’t really matter.
“It’s like they’ve been a part of our team for years,” Edison coach Dave Lemons said.
Vo will have plenty more tests in his academic career, but he and the Chargers passed a big one Thursday. They edged Huntington Beach by a 10-8 score, taking outright control of first place in the Wave League halfway through league play.
Edison (9-2, 3-0 in league) also gave itself a chance to move up in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 rankings. The Chargers currently sit at No. 4, two spots behind Huntington Beach (8-2, 2-1).
Sophomore Dylan Trinh and freshman Kai Stolaruk each swept in singles for Edison, which is seeking its first league title since 2019. Trinh said the team is also looking forward to a deep playoff run after failing to make the postseason last year due to a third-place league finish.
The Chargers and Oilers rematch in the final match of the regular season on April 20, and that match will be played at Edison.
“[We’re] ecstatic,” Trinh said. “Now we know when we go back [home], they’re the ones who have to fight more than us.”
Junior Trevor Dodge and freshman Lloyd Hitch won twice at No. 1 doubles for Edison, and the other doubles teams of seniors Vo and Nicolas Vu, as well as juniors Isaac Miller and David Le, each won one set.
Two especially close sets went the visitors’ way.
Dodge and Hitch edged Huntington Beach’s Gideon Vethan and Alex Djordevic 7-6 (9-7) in the first round, helping Edison take a 4-2 sets lead. In the second round, Miller and Le beat Vethan and Djordevic, again in a tiebreaker, as Edison established an 8-4 sets advantage.
“I think the match came down to a couple tiebreakers,” Huntington Beach coach Josh Anderson said. “That’s the difference … This is kind of what we expected it to be, real close.”
Stolaruk won the clinching 10th set, blanking Huntington Beach sophomore Caleb Goodman 6-0 in the third round.
“It felt good,” Stolaruk said. “To be honest, the whole day I was thinking about that match. I’ve known him for a while, and we’re really close friends.”
Despite the loss, Huntington Beach actually had more games than Edison, 77-75. This was partially because Goodman, Kien Pham and Amrit Grewal swept the Chargers’ No. 3 singles player. The Oilers’ No. 3 doubles team of Andrew Bailey and Ethan Le also earned an impressive 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 sweep.
But it wasn’t quite enough to beat the Chargers, who return to action Tuesday with a Sunset Conference crossover home match against rival Fountain Valley.
Vo and the other seniors will be in college soon enough. First, an extended season for Edison sounds good to Stolaruk.
“That would be really cool,” he said. “I really hope so. Especially for our seniors, because COVID and stuff took away some time. The seniors are really fun, so it would be cool to get them far.”
Huntington Beach plays at Marina on Tuesday.
::
Support our sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.
For more sports stories, visit latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/sports or follow us on Twitter @DailyPilotSport.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
