Spartans squash Knights

Its meeting with La Cañada High was certainly quick, but not exactly painless for the St. Francis boys’ tennis team.

The Spartans completely dominated the latest installment of the annual nonleague rivalry between the two neighboring schools to the tune of a 17-1 victory on Tuesday afternoon at La Cañada.

“This is one of the deepest teams we’ve ever had,” said 18-year veteran Spartans Coach Will Moravec, who lost three seniors from last year, but gained several talented underclassmen. “We actually got younger, but better.”

La Cañada (8-3) swept through the singles bracket behind three wins from No. 3 Arsen Khachatryan, who turned in a line of 6-0, 6-0, 6-2.

No. 1 singles Greg Lee won a pair of sets, 6-1, 6-0, before being replaced by substitute Liwon Lim, who won a set, 6-0.

Joshua Kim, the Spartans No. 2 singles, won his two sets without dropping a game and his substitute Aayush Shah had a 6-1 win.

St. Francis’ only win came from its No. 3 doubles team of Chris Norhadian and John Kasanjian, 6-3, but it was the doubles bracket that had St. Francis Coach Ron Zambrano particularly displeased.

“My doubles were sleeping today,” said Zambrano, who lost his two best singles players from last year, Vinni Lodolo and Jason Trueblood, to graduation. “I don’t know what happened, if they were intimidated or just lethargic.

“We did not play half [as good] as we normally play.”

La Cañada, which won last year’s match, 11-7, got doubles sweeps from its No. 1 team Grayson Frazier and Aidan Lynch, 6-2, 6-2, 6-0, and its No. 2 team Tyler Jones and Michael Choi, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4.

No. 3 doubles Matt Faber and Leeho Lim notched two wins, 6-4, 6-2.