No state tennis tourney, but there is plenty of competition for HRV boys within the IMC ranks

“We’ll have quite a few newcomers to competitive tennis playing on our varsity this year due to a few early graduates/opt outs not able to play for us this season,” Hiatt said. “It’ll be fun to watch the new guys compete and improve.”

Fun and competitive, as the Eagles will have their hands full in the competitive Intermountain Conference once again this season.

Redmond won the state title in 2019 and three other schools — HRV, Crook County and The Dalles — were among the 15 overall to score points in the tourney.

At least one HRV player will be looking to continue to test his mettle against the state’s best tennis players, and he has the resume to do so. Senior Vaughn Reardon is a two-time state tourney qualifier.

Reardon advanced to the semifinals in 2019 as a sophomore, losing to eventual runner-up Bojan Soskic in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.

His freshman year, Reardon made it to the state quarterfinals where he lost to eventual state champion, Rox Rogers of Ashland.

Hiatt said senior Ben Garofalo is another Eagle player who the coach expects some good results from this spring. “He was ready to break out last season when COVID canceled our season,” Hiatt said.

“Since last season was cancelled, most of our players are new to the team,” Hiatt added. “Our team goals this season are to improve and have fun.”

HRV will play dual matches against Intermountain Conference opponents. “Looks like Redmond is the team to beat this year,” Hiatt said. “They return quite a few quality players from two seasons ago, a couple of them were state qualifiers. We look to compete, and we’ll see where we are after playing our first match on April 12 at Ridgeview.”

Redmond won the 2019 5A state championship. Three Panther players who competed at the state tourney that season were underclassmen.

Included in that group was Skyler Jones, who teamed with now-graduated Benny Saito to win the state doubles crown. Yoshi Saito and Charlies Rawlins also return; they were runners-up in doubles at the 2019 IMC district tourney.