Santa Barbara High’s Harry DeBoer zeroes in on a forehand on Tuesday. (Megan Genovese/Presidio Photos)
The Dons faithful can release a sigh of relief as Santa Barbara High’s boys tennis team topped Dos Pueblos on Thursday 11-7 to stay in line for another Channel League title.
The Chargers had snapped Santa Barbara’s 114-match winning streak in league competition in March, threatening to end the Dons’ long-standing consecutive league-title streak. But the Dons came back on Thursday to earn a season split with Dos Pueblos.
“I’m really happy for the team because they really wanted this,” said Dons head coach Greg Tebbe. “It’s great because it keeps the Channel League championship streak alive. We’ll be co-champs, but still.
“This is probably, in my mind, this is much more gratifying because you had to earn it.”
Santa Barbara High is seeking its 14th straight league title.
For the Chargers, the loss broke a 10-game winning streak to begin the season.
There was a lot riding on the outcome of Thursday’s match, but Chargers head coach Liz Frech pointed out that there are plenty of matches still to be played before the Channel League Tournament and CIF Playoffs.
“We still have more to do,” Frech said. “They said that if we were to lose this match that we’re co-league champions but that won’t be determined until the last league match and we have a lot of work to do because San Marcos is not easy.”
Santa Barbara, too, has San Marcos remaining on the regular-season schedule. The Royals feature Kento Perera, the last unbeaten player in the Channel League after Dos Pueblos’ doubles team of Mason Casady and Joshua Wang lost their first set on Thursday. Casady and Wang are 23-1 as a doubles team this season.
“This is a great year for the Channel League,” Tebbe said. “Because not only is DP really strong, but San Marcos is really good team too. It’s actually one of the best years in Channel League.”
Dos Pueblos’ Miles Baldwin
Dos Pueblos’ Andrew Tufenkian
Dos Pueblos’ Patrick Corpuz swept three sets to dominate singles play.
Santa Barbara claimed all six of the other points in singles. Jordan Rodnick, Jackson Powell and Logan Lender all won a pair of sets.
In doubles, Santa Barbara High’s Morgan Hale and Ryan Chung went undefeated.
Neither Chung nor Rodnick played in the first contest between the teams and the pair made a difference for Santa Barbara.
“It definitely helped but it was still a dogfight,” Tebbe said. “I mean, there were so many close matches today.”
One of those was an especially important set win for Santa Barbara. It came at the end of the second round of doubles matches as Santa Barbara’s Harry DeBoer and Miles Hale battled Dos Pueblos’ Miles Baldwin and Andrew Tufenkian. The Chargers took an early lead but the two Santa Barbara freshmen played like veterans and rallied for a tight 7-5 victory.
SANTA BARBARA 11, DOS PUEBLOS 7
SB Singles – Rodnick 2-1, Powell 2-1, Lender 2-1. DP Singles – Quinn Hensley 0-3, Shabbar0-3 Corpuz 3-0,
SB Doubles – Hale/Chung 3-0, DeBoer/Hale 2-1, Sutton/McClintock 0-3. DP Doubles – Baldwin/Tufenkian 1-2, Wang/Casady 2-1, Steigerwald/Yang 1-2.
