The 2025 boys’ tennis spring season officially kicked off on February 10 when we started tryouts.  48 boys signed up and a week later, the coaching staff had 18 selected for varsity and 19 for JV.  To say the varsity squad looks solid would be an understatement.  We picked up a new #1 player in Sze Ting Chen, who transferred to Acalanes from Berkeley.  In addition, his younger brother Sze You is one of three new freshmen who came through tryouts.  They have created immediate depth in the roster – the others being Bora Hoeberechts and Chris Gorham.

With one short week of practice behind us, the pre-season matches have already started as the regular season comes quickly on March 11.  This week we also play Piedmont (Feb 26) and Head Royce (Feb 27) and next week, we play Branson (Mar 3) and Heritage (Mar 4) before taking off for the California Tennis Classic in Fresno on March 6.  Though the team is a mix of all four grades, the comradery and bonds are already forming.  That being said, let’s get into this.

As we do every year, the team has selected three team captains.  The players vote for two and the coaches appoint a third one.  After seeing this year’s names, the terms voter fraud and ballot tampering came up, but after a recount, our captains were named: Nick Owens, Sammy Foster and Kaya Hoeberechts.  All kidding aside, these three are with me for a fourth year and I know they’ll step up as leaders.

Because I knew how we would match up against De La Salle, I chose to sit Sze Ting and save him for the latter part of the week.  As you will see in the scores below, all nine lines won convincingly, so I won’t write a lot of words analyzing matches.  Coach Peter and I were proud of the boys today as they took care of business and were gentlemen on and off the court.  We also took some notes on areas to work on in practice.  Also, thank you to all of our family fans who were courtside cheering us on.

Results – Acalanes defeated De La Salle 9-0

Singles

#1 Nick Owens (A) defeated Martin De La Vega (D) 6-1, 6-0

#2 Peyton Eagens (A) defeated Mason Cruz (D) 6-0, 6-0

#3 Sze You Chen (A) defeated Kaiden Halls (D) 6-1, 6-2

#4 Sammy Foster (A) defeated Joshua Huang (D) 6-4, 6-0

#5 Dylan Rocca (A) defeated Gannon Taylor (D) 6-1, 6-2

#6 Kyle Shin (A) defeated Charlie Musco (D) 6-0, 6-2

Doubles

#1 Bora & Kaya Hoeberechts (A) defeated Ethan Crossett/Brayden Farnholtz (D) 6-0, 6-0

#2 Blake Marshall/Danny Goldwyn (A) defeated Mateo Del Arroz/Jonah Mateo (D) 6-1, 6-0

#3 Carsten Ristow/Chase Belhumeur (A) defeated Cole Wheeler/Julian Rodriguez (D) 6-1, 6-0