Tennis wins wild match against Santiago Sharks

Story by Ethan Kwak 
Staff Writer 

Photos by Samantha Shiroishi
Staff Photographer

On Friday, May 5, in a game ending at midnight, the SPHS varsity boys tennis team won a super tiebreaker and secured their victory over the Santiago Sharks by a final score of 112-111. The Tigers secured the victory by a single point.

The teams battled back-and-forth in both singles and doubles play until both points and sets were tied. Out of the tiebreakers, the Tigers led 2-0.

The Tigers’ victory was contested, however, by a scoring conflict in freshman Lucas Cornforth’s third game. The Tigers lost 6-2 but the Sharks had 6-1 written on their scorecards. After much debate, including calling a CIF official, both teams decided that the score of 6-2 was fair, meaning the points were still tied.

In CIF tennis, there is a rare occurrence known as a super-tiebreaker, in which the points, not the tiebreakers, determine the winner. Since the points were tied, both teams were required to restart their matches in an endeavor that crept into the next day. 

The Tigers faced setbacks, including bad cramping that forced sophomore Zachary Lee to forfeit his game. However, at the end of the super-tiebreaker, sophomore Emilio Lois won his singles match 7-4 which supplied the Tigers with their one point win at 12:15 A.M. 

With a suspenseful victory over the Sharks, the Tigers are looking to make a deep CIF run despite remaining an underdog and being ranked several seeds below many of their opponents. Their next CIF matchup against the Cerrito Dons will take place at Cerritos High School on Monday, May 8.

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