SUS - Standout Gila Valley tennis players in quarterfinals
April 25th, 2008, 12:07 am · Post a Comment · posted by Jay Acker
I’m sitting here with six pages of brackets I’ve printed out of both the girls and boys 5A Division II state doubles tournament for a preview of two Gila Valley doubles teams playing in the quarterfinals on Friday.
Looking through all the names from teams of all the schools that were eliminated last weekend, gives me an appreciation of Cibola’s Albert Castro and Jacob Nino and San Luis’ Julissa Dominguez and Ariana Huerta accomplishments to get this far.
To start off, Cibola tennis coach Duncan Phillips feels his doubles team was railroaded when they didn’t get seeded. He said the committee just didn’t recieve the paperwork on their 15-3 regular season. Still Castro and Nino - who played one and two singles throughout the season - proved they belonged as they are the only unseeded team still alive.
The Raiders even looked impressive in their preliminary rounds. The first round was their hardest as they beat eight seeded Rawlins and Estes from Phoenix North in three sets: 6-2, 5-7, 6-0. Cibola then eliminated fellow Gila Valley competitors when they beat Rodriguez and Vazquez from San Luis 6-0, 6-1. Castro and Nino improved on that second round win with a straight games victory over Johnson and Clarke from Pinnacle.
Castro and Nino deserve this success. They were the two best players on a solid Cibola team that was overshadowed in regular season competition by eventual Gila Valley champion San Luis and runner up Kofa. As the top ranked singles player, Castro - a freshman - won often, but the other deeper teams would rack up more wins and eventually come out on top. Castro is the first freshman Phillips has ever started at number one all year long.
As for others in the Gila Valley, Kofa’s Alex Hazen and Ryan Thornburg beat Mountain View and Westview teams before falling to fifth seeded Centennial one round shy of the quarterfinals. If Castro is the area freshman that shows the most promise, Thornburg is right behind. He started the year as a junior varsity player then week by week moved up to sixth varsity, then fifth varsity, then fourth varsity… beating his opponents all the while.
I hope Saturday’s Yuma Sun brings news of another Raider success, but they’ve drawn the toughest quarterfinal opponent. Phillips said Ironwood Ridge’s Timothy Holten and Dillon Kennedy are undefeated on the year and have even earned United States Tennis Association (USTA) ranking outside of prep competition. Ironwood got a first round bye and won its next two round convincingly, dropping only three games so far.
As Phillips put it, “Nobody expects us to win, but we aren’t going to go up there to roll over.”
As for Dominguez and Huerta representing San Luis in the girls bracket, they haven’t exactly shocked the world like the Cibola boys. They were 10-5 as a doubles team and were given a four seed in the tourney that meant a first round bye.
The Sidewinders first beat Kingman’s Jacobson and McMillon 6-1, 6-2 in the second round then were challenged by Skylines Cazares and Ahmen in the third round, but still pulled out a straight set victory, 6-4, 6-2.
San Luis’ quarterfinal match-up is where it gets interesting. They face Deer Valleys second best doubles team of Ayson Fix and Brittan y Brewer. San Luis is the four seed and Deer Valley is the five seed so they are statistically favored to move on.
But…
Much earlier in the season Deer Valley beat San Luis 9-0. Dominguez and Huerta are the Sidewinders best doubles team and they barely lost to Deer Valley’s top doubles team of Amy Liebertz and Katie Lively - who are the second seed and also in the quarterfinals - 8-5.
Now that just made things a little more interesting.
Both teams face unique challenges on Friday and both have a reasonable chance of winning. Hopefully the reward of being ranked in the top four in the state can be enough to pull them through.
