Lady Hilltoppers capture AAAA tennis title
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St. Michael's, Los Alamos boys finish second in respective classes
5/10/2008 - 5/11/08
Bruce Cottrell admits he forgets how good his Los Alamos girls tennis team can be.
He snapped to that conclusion well before the top-seeded Lady Hilltoppers successfully defended their Class AAAA title with a 5-2 win over No. 3 Farmington at the Jerry Cline Tennis Complex on Saturday.
Los Alamos was one of three northern schools that advanced to the finals, but the only one to come away with a blue trophy. The boys teams at St. Michael's and Los Alamos were runners-up in their respective classes. The Horsemen lost to New Mexico Military Institute 5-4 for the A-AAA title, while Los Alamos was beaten by Albuquerque Academy 8-1 in the AAAA finals.
Cottrell, the head coach of the Los Alamos girls, came to the realization that the Lady Hilltoppers were a tough group to beat after a loss to eventual A-AAA champion Bosque School in a tuneup match Tuesday. Los Alamos lost 7-2, but that was without its top two singles players, sisters Jeena and Grace Kim.
"We won a couple of matches (against the Lady Bobcats) and played well in a couple of others," Cottrell said. "So it was a nice tuneup."
The Lady Hilltoppers' strength against the Lady Scorpions was their ability to close out matches. Three of the six singles duels went to a third set, and Los Alamos won each of them. The biggest pick-me-up came from Jeena Kim at the No. 1 slot over Kammy Blackwood, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.
"If Farmington came out and won four of the first six singles sets we knew they would be dangerous," Cottrell said.
That was because the Lady Scorpions led at No. 1 doubles and split the first two sets in the No. 2 match when Emma Myers and Desta Shelley won their No. 3 match, 6-3, 6-3, over Mckenzie Pavlik and Lyndsey Francis to sew up the title.
The St. Michael's boys weren't as lucky in their third-set battles with the Colts. The No. 1 Horsemen won at four, five and six singles, but could have taken a 4-2 advantage into doubles had Jake Matthews beaten Kyle Lynch at No. 1.
Matthews forced a tiebreaker in the final set, but Lynch eked out a 7-4 advantage to take a 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 win. NMMI, the third seed, took two of the three doubles matches to win its first title since 2005.
"Kyle Lynch is a powerhouse," St. Michael's head coach Kevin Skelly said. "For Jake to play like that and take him the distance was just awesome. He came so close to beating him."
The Colts' path to the title included an almost annual battle with two-time defending champion Las Vegas Robertson, albeit in the semifinals. The Colts' hard-earned 5-4 win lasted almost four hours.
The deciding match came in No. 1 doubles, where the Cardinals' duo of Emilio Garcia and Placido Gomez took the first set 6-3 against Lynch and Theo Rex-Horoi, and were up 5-4 in the second with a 30-love advantage. But an overhead smash went into the net, and the Colts won the last three games and took the third set 6-4 to advance.
"It's been tough to be right there," Robertson head coach Juan Carlos Fulgenzi said. "We were a couple of points away from finishing it up and we couldn't get it done."
Los Alamos' boy team was matched up against Albuquerque Academy in the AAAA finals for the second straight year. And for the second straight year, the Hilltoppers were on the wrong side of the score.
No. 2 Los Alamos did not have their No. 3 singles player in Avery Colby, who sprained his ankle earlier in the week, but head coach Giri Raichur said it was merely the difference between his team possibly taking two of the six singles matches.
"Academy has very strong one-through-six players," Raichur said. "We thought we could try to get at least two matches in singles and try to do our best in the doubles."
Academy had the tournament wrapped up by winning all but No. 6 singles, which Jason Grider won, 7-6, 6-3 over Jordan Key.
On the girls side, St. Michael's couldn't get past the Lady Sun Devils of Albuquerque Sandia Prep, who cruised to a 6-3 win in the morning semifinals.
Contact James Barron at 986-3045 or jbarron@sfnewmexican.com.
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