GLEN DALE – The third time was certainly a charm for the Linsly and Morgantown boys tennis teams Thursday. Both won OVAC Boys Tennis titles for the third straight year.
The Cadets had all four singles players in their respective finals – three won titles – as they piled up 23 points in the two-day event that had an international flair on the John Marshall High School courts to run away with the Class 1A-4A team title. They also had a doubles team prevail on Wednesday. Cambridge was a distant second with nine points as only two other schools – Steubenville Catholic (5) and East Liverpool (1) – scored in the eight-team field.
In the Class 5A portion of the two-class event, the Mohigans tallied 17 points despite only having a doubles team win a crown. They had two second-place finishers in singles. City rival University High was runner-up with 13 points, one ahead of Marietta. They had a doubles champ.
“It was a fun couple of days,” Linsly head coach Rebecca Upton said in her return. “It’s all the kids. There’s no secret to it. It’s them. They play every day in their free hours. They love the game. They worked really, really hard to get here.”
Luis Brulles (No. 2), Jaycob Sauvageau (No. 3) and Andrew Hoang (No. 4) all claimed a singles title, but did so in a variety of ways.
Brulles, seeded third, was the first to take the court against top-seeded Andrew McClellan of University in a battle of lefties. The Cadets 15-year-old sophomore from Spain made quick work of his opponent with an 8-1 nod in less than 30 minutes. He had eliminated No. 2 seed Max Chen of Morgantown, 8-2.
“I’m pretty excited,” Brulles said after being doused with water by his happy teammates. “My serve was really good today, as was my forehand.”
Sauvageau, the No. 2 seed and a native of Canada, was next and he rallied from an early deficit to take down Morgantown’s top-seeded Larry Du, 8-5.
With the match deadlocked at 3, the Cadets senior won four straight points to take command.
“He was a really good opponent but I thought whoever was the strongest mentally would come out the winner,” Sauvageu said. “I served very well. I don’t think I double-faulted one time.”
Hoang, the No. 2 seed, was the last to take the court and he and Morgantown’s top-seeded Solas Chhin-Kreiner gave the fans their money’s worth.
After letting a 5-2 lead slip away, a strong two-handed backhand return down the line gave the sophomore a thrilling and exhausting 9-8 (7-5) victory in a tiebreaker that lasted well over an hour and capped the Cadets outstanding performance.
“It was easy at the beginning, but I got a break to make it 5-4,” Hoang explained. “We just kept going back and forth after that. We went to the tiebreaker and once I saw the ball coming at me, I knew I could hit it past him down the line.”
Hoang scored the first three points in the tiebreaker only to watch Chhin-Kreiner storm back to draw even at 5.
Upton, who also coaches the girls basketball team, served as the boys tennis coach for several years before COVID pushed the high school season back and into the tennis season. It was a nice return.
“We had an 8-1 win, we had a tiebreaker win. We saw just about everything in the last two days,” Upton said. “I’m so proud of them. They played really, really well.”
The win also allowed Linsly to double up as the girls won their 13th straight small school title on Tuesday. Upton said, however, that there was no pressure on her team.
“We’re a tennis team and a tennis family. Coach (Dave) Riethmiller and his girls have an outstanding program going there. My boys just went out and played like they are capable of.”
Hoang’s win gave him a double-double as he teamed with Wesley Palmer to win the No. 2 Doubles title on Wednesday.
Marietta’s Max Navarro, the No. 4 seed, defeated Palmer, 8-3, for the No. 1 singles title. He is a foreign exchange student from France.
By KIM NORTH/The Intelligencer
