In his first year coaching, Sergio Lopez-Galvan wasn’t sure what to expect heading into districts. Devam Patel and Ethan Martin notched a state doubles qualification with fourth place and The Dalles had 19 points to grab third at the Intermountain Conference boys tennis tournament in Redmond.
Coming off a 7-1 loss last week at Redmond, The Dalles boys tennis team played short-handed this past Tuesday, but still scored a 5-0 win at home over Pendleton with every match decided by straight sets.
Over the past three matches, The Dalles boys tennis team has gone 2-1 with wins over Ridgeview and Hood River Valley and a 7-1 loss on the road against Redmond in Tuesday’s varsity contest.
Coach Dane Klindt wanted his senior skiers to end their careers on a high note and they did just that.
Louis Red Cloud, Ethan Martin and Petra Van Kessel-Ervin all placed in the top-15, led by Red Cloud, who wound up less than 10 seconds from first place, ending in fifth overall, in last weekend’s giant slalom event Saturday on the Reynolds Course at Mount Hood Meadows.
With an entire varsity roster of unseeded players, The Dalles boys’ tennis coach Shea MacNab called last weekend’s district performance something to build on. Andy Lopez won three singles matches and the No. 1 doubles tandem of Ethan Martin and Devam Patel combined for three victories, including an upset of the eighth-seeded Mountain View duo to lead the Riverhawks at the 5A Special District 1 Tournament ending Saturday in Hermiston.
In their 8-0 loss to Columbia River Conference champion Hood River Valley, The Dalles had four matches that could have gone either way, but were counted as close losses in Wednesday’s league finale at The Dalles High School. Andy Lopez lost his No. 2 singles match against Sawyer Bogard by scores of 3-6, 5-7; and at No. 4 singles, Salvador Garcia had a chance to gain an early edge in the first set, eventually losing in a tiebreaker 6-7 (4); and Hood River’s Jacob Kaplan completed the two-set sweep by a 6-2 margin in the second set.
All six varsity matches ended in straight sets with an average margin of victory of 4.7 points in the The Dalles boys’ tennis team’s first sweep of the season, a 6-0 whitewash, on the road at Pendleton High School.
