St. Ignatius ends Menlo School’s 7-year streak of tennis titles
The motto is simple, but in a sport connected to individualism, it’s almost counterintuitive: “Together.”
The St. Ignatius boys tennis team has hung its visor on such a notion all season and on Thursday the Wildcats made history.
Playing in its first ever Central Coast Section finals, SI stung seven-time defending champion Menlo School-Atherton with a closer-than-it-sounds 6-1 victory at Bay Club Courtside in Los Gatos.
Four of the matches went three sets and the outcome wasn’t clinched until the No. 2 doubles team of Rob Werner and Josh Belandres pulled out a 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3 win over Menlo’s Alex Neumann and Dylan Pace.
The No. 1 doubles team of Ethan Smith and Jackson Cooney and freshmen singles players Ryan Ali and Ryder Jackson were victorious early to give St. Ignatius a 3-1 lead.
After the clincher, No. 2 singles player Cambell Nakayama and the third doubles team of Derek Austin and Mason Fung also won for St. Ignatius, which improved to 25-0.
“What an incredible match and incredible season,” St. Ignatius’ 15th-year coach Craig Law said.
The two teams may well meet for the Northern California championship in Folsom on Saturday, but a number of St. Ignatius players will be attending prom, according to Law.
Menlo (19-4), making its 19th CCS final appearance, was after its 15th title overall and eighth straight, which would have been a section record.
Gunn-Palo Alto also won seven straight starting in 1972.
Sophomore Siddharth Chari had Menlo’s only win at No. 1 singles.
Even more surprising than St. Ignatius’ title was Gunn’s boys CCS swim title at Santa Clara International Swim Center on Saturday.
Led by its 400-yard freestyle relay team, anchored by Joao Ama, Gunn finished with 442 points to 431 for Bellarmine, which had won the previous 31 titles.
Had Bellarmine won the 400 relay — the last event of the day — it would have extended the streak to 32.
[...] Gunn pulled off its only race win of the day to take home the championship.
Among boys’ double winners:
Xiangfei Xie (Saratoga), Albert Gwo (Los Altos) and Alex Liang (Palo Alto).
Palo Alto won the girls meet and Chloe Isleta (Presentation) and Izzi Henig (Menlo-Atherton) were double-winners.
National record ... for a minute:
The Florida-bound Rooney leaves with three NCS records.
For the second straight year, he’ll skip the CIF State Championships in Clovis in order to train for the U.S. Olympic Trials.
San Ramon Valley-Danville swept the team competition with the girls winning their third straight title and the boys their first since 1981.
Hank Poppe was part of four victories, taking the 50 free and 100 breaststroke and anchoring two relays, including a 200 free squad that broke the NCS record in 1:22.35.
WCAL/CCS baseball:
Palo Alto (23-5-1), not WCAL champion Serra (24-5-1), earned the top seed of the CCS baseball Open Division bracket.
Palo Alto will play WCAL rival and 16th-seed Valley Christian (15-14) at 4 p.m. Wednesday, while Serra, a surprise pick as the fourth seed, hosts San Lorenzo Valley-Felton (13-9).
Palma-Salinas (19-5) is the No. 2 seed and Santa Teresa (21-4-1) is No. 3 in the 16-team bracket.
Serra got a complete game from Christopher Apecechea to break St. Francis’ 12-game winning streak in a 6-2 win for the WCAL playoff crown Thursday at Santa Clara.
Other top seeds are Leland-San Jose (18-8) in Division I and Carmel (19-7) in Division II, where Sacred Heart Cathedral (17-9) is seeded sixth.
Mitch Stephens is a senior writer for MaxPreps.
E-mail: mstephens@maxpreps.com Twitter: @MitchMashMax.
Chronicle top 10 baseball
Rank
Record
De La Salle
Palo Alto
Heritage
NR
NR
Monte Vista
NR
Casa Grande
Chronicle top 10 softball
Rank
Record
Foothill
Freedom
NR
Heritage
Newark Memorial
NR
