By Karen Huesh
Copy Editor
Photos by Jenny Luo
The boys tennis team faced their first defeat against Crescenta Valley High School in a disappointing 16-2 loss on Tuesday, March 10. The Tigers were only able to snatch two wins in doubles with little luck in singles.
The Tigers blame their defeat on distractions, level of play, and confusion. At first, the varsity team was scheduled to play Crescenta Valley’s varsity team at home, but soon found out that they were to play the match away. Due to miscommunication, Duarte High School’s varsity team came to home courts expecting to play the Tigers. Because of the turmoil, the Tigers started their match an hour late, giving them little time to warm up before the actual match.
For the match, the Tigers put in junior Sagar Raju for number one singles, freshman Nick Corvino for number two, and junior Casey Corvino for number three. Raju came close to claiming a victory, playing a tiebreaker with the number two singles from the Crescenta Valley team, but ended up losing 9-7.
The Tigers mixed things up by changing up the doubles combinations, pairing senior Bruno Cavalier and sophomore Jesse Chen for number one, senior Lenn Kushigemachi and sophomore Kevin Huang for number two, and sophomores Jason Cai and Kendrick Shen for number three. The number one and number three teams each had one win while the number two forced falcons to a tiebreaker, but could not prevail.
“We could have beaten them but we didn’t have the correct mindset,” Raju said. “Often times our team lost focus during points and this ultimately led to us losing points that we normally wouldn’t.”
The next matchup places the Tigers against the Monrovia Wildcats on Friday, March 20.
