Girls tennis crushes Hillsboro in season debut

HRV dominated on their home court, sweeping the Spartans 8-0, winning every match, every set, and 32 of the 35 varsity games that were played.

Unsurprisingly, Erin Mason, who took over as head coach after serving as an assistant coach the previous two seasons, was thrilled.

“This result is awesome as a coach. With such a rough early season, with (Thursday’s) match being our fifth day outside, I was happy,” he said. “As a coach, you always have great expectations from your players. With the bad weather and lack of outside tennis, I was unsure what the day would bring. Everyone is nervous — take a few games to get the rust off usually. Not HRV Eagles — we came out firing on all cylinders and it was awesome.”

In the No. 1 singles match, Montsie Garrido took down Julissa Mark (7-5, 6-0), Nikki Paulus defeated Isabel Mosley in the No. 2 slot (6-2, 6-0), Kirby Joseph beat Margo Miller in the No. 3 position (6-4, 6-1), and Yasmeen Ziada won against Seira French in the No. 4 match (6-1, 6-0).

In doubles competition, the Flores sisters — America and Crystal — defeated the Vazquez sisters (Isel and Daisy) by a score of 6-1 in both sets of the No. 1 match. In the No. 2 position, the duo of Claire Oswald and Bianca Badillo beat the pair of Kaily Fischer and Suzy Manoych (6-2, 6-1). Kayla Green and Alivea Harsanyi made short work of Leila Neochea and Courtney McMillian (6-2, 6-0) in the No. 3 games, and Kali Wetherell and Ruby Dosier took every game against Maria Lazano and Olivia Thomas in the No. 4 matches.

Even in a lopsided match, though, Mason said there was always room for improvement, noting there were 30 double faults and 181 unforced errors spread over 19 HRV players in both varsity and junior varsity competition Thursday.

“I am not happy with the unforced errors total, even though that works out to 9.5 errors per player, and that’s not bad,” he explained. “I feel we can dramatically reduce this number over the season.”

Mason also said he wanted to give a “shout out” to JV doubles players Silva Sankari and Megan Church, both freshmen (“They were like veterans out there!”), and JV singles player Monica de la Rosa, a sophomore (“Monica played within herself and never overplayed any shot.”). JV won 4-0.

Next up for HRV is a very important match with Columbia River Conference rival Pendleton in Hood River April 5.

“Although we defeated Pendleton twice last season, I never take any team for granted,” Mason noted. “I don’t judge a team by past performances — the only one that counts is what you bring to the court on match day.”

Boys

The boys tennis team traveled to Sandy on Tuesday falling to the Pioneers 2-6. The lone wins both came in singles competition: Simon Harsanyi defeated Seth Francis (6-3, 6-4) in the No. 2 match and Chris Riviello dominated the No. 4 match, beating Ryan Kramer 6-0 in the first set and 6-1 in the second. Sandy’s Dante Desimone swept Sawyer Bogard in No. 1 singles and Carson Schutt lost to Daniel Arizmendi-Gonzalez 0-6, 3-6, in the No. 4 match.

In doubles, the Harter brothers (Luke and Adam) lost to the duo of Kansala/McArn (0-6, 3-6) in the first match, Soren Rasanyi and Arnulfo Perez couldn’t get by C. Carmony/Benson in the second (3-6, 1-6), Jay Fielder and Charlie Bickford fell to Gorski/Wolf (4-6, 1-6) in the No. 3 match, and Nash Levy and Ben Fick lost to Kim/B. Carmony (1-6, 3-6) in the No. 4 slot.

The Eagles hit the road again Thursday for a match at Hillsboro. However, three of the eight matches were unable to be completed due to rain, and the two teams decided to put the result in the book as a 4-4 tie.

The boys return from break for a match at Pendleton April 5 and then will host Ridgeview April 8 at 1 p.m. for their first home match of the season.