We knew going into today’s match that we were the heavy favorites.  College Park has a lot of young players and will only get better over the next few years.  The message to our boys beforehand was to be gentlemen and to stay focused on their game plans – sometimes letting your guard down leads to losses.  As you can see by the scores below, they didn’t drop a set.  College Park and Acalanes have always had a good opponent relationship (both coaches and players) and today was a perfect example.

Because each scoreline was pretty one-sided, I’m opting to go a different route in this article.  However, I do want to first congratulate the team and be sure I recognize their efforts in getting this win.  As I mentioned in the Acalanes-Benicia article, playing interleague matches gives me an opportunity to play our lower-ranking varsity players.  But it’s more than that.  The coaches see how hard they work in practice and how much they’re improving.  Their reward is being trusted, as these matches count against our overall win-loss record.   Every player on this team adds value – all seventeen have now played in matches that “count” and have at least one win.  This will allow all of them to play in the season-ending DFAL singles and doubles tournament.  Who am I talking about? – #14 Grant Cortez, #15 Andrew Zheng, #16 Billy O’Brien and #17 Alex King.  To put that into perspective, Acalanes has 1,250 students of which over 30 tried out for varsity.  These guys successfully made the team!

Deeper into the season, a lot of attention gets paid rightfully to our seniors, so while we’re mid-season, I want to highlight the freshmen who have stormed our lineup: #6 Sammy Taylor, #7 Cameron Fisher, #9 Rhett Brewer, #11 James Ammerman and #17 Alex King.  It’s rare to have five freshmen come through tryouts and land in varsity.  And they aren’t on the bench, several are competing in league matches.  As of today, they are collectively 21-16 on the season.  Leading the pack is Fisher at 8-3, Ammerman at 5-2 and King at 2-0.  I’ll say it again; the future looks bright. 

Some quick updates: #1 Sze Ting Chen will be back in action later this week.  #2 Saaj Shah is also close to 100%.  Thursday, we play a home match against Las Lomas and then the boys are off on spring break for a week (and the coaching staff also gets a needed rest 😊.)  And finally, thank you again to our family supporters who survived the hot day at College Park and rooted us on.  Go Dons!  Coach Rick

Results: Acalanes defeated College Park 9-0

Singles

#1 Sze You Chen (A) defeated Max Guliaev (CP) 6-3, 6-3

#2 Bora Hoeberechts (A) defeated Gus Meer (CP) 6-1, 6-0

#3 Kyle Shin (A) defeated Victor Duma (CP) 6-2, 7-5

#4 Cameron Fisher (A) defeated Max Gold (CP) 6-4, 6-0

#5 Chris Gorham (A) defeated Riley Paffrath (CP) 6-1, 6-2

#6 James Ammerman (A) defeated Diego Dubon (CP) 6-1, 6-1

Doubles

#1 Blake Marshall/Vedant Todi (A) defeated John Nolan/Nima Saemian (CP) 6-3, 6-1

#2 Grant Cortez/Billy O’Brien (A) defeated Luca Solis/Amari Santos (CP) 6-0, 6-0

#3 Andrew Zheng/Alex King (A) defeated Owen Fox/Callen Veltri (CP) 6-3, 6-2