The 2012 Saints tennis team will enter the year in a much different fashion than what the 2011 team faced. Going into 2011, few returning varsity letterman would be leading the team, meaning that the team would see many new faces, with the ups and downs arising from the youthful inexperience. As we head into the 2012 season losing only two varsity players (co-captains Jake Gilbert and Michael Ebeling) the team’s returning 12 lettermen will be jockeying for playing time with other players from the junior varsity who have improved their games. Last year’s team ended up in 5th place in the Western League and had a 9-11 mark overall. Once again qualifying for San Diego Division 3 CIF playoffs, the team was the #7 seed and defeated High Tech High 14-4 in the 1st round of playoffs before being bounced from the playoffs by La Jolla Country Day. This year’s team will again be headlined by Saints two-time Player-of-the-Year, Junior Luis Miranda whose 2011 match record of 40-8 overall in singles, mostly in the highly competitive Western League, is unprecedented in over 15 years at Saints. Luis’ goals will be even higher this year as earing a top 5 seeding for Western League CIF and advancing deeply in San Diego CIF will be the target. Also striving for high goals will be the doubles team of seniors Andrew Vazquez and Connor Keefe. In 2011, Connor and Andrew regurlarly formed 2 of the 3 singles players for most matches but, after experiencing a high level of success in the final 3 weeks of the season as a doubles tandem in Western League playoffs as well as team CIF, they have decided to be a team from the beginning of the year through the end with the goal of not only qualifying for CIF San Diego Individuals but advancing to the late rounds.

With the #1 singles and #1 doubles positions in solid hands, making decisions about filling out the rest of the varsity spots will be difficult as many players received varsity experience or lots of JV match action as well. Expected to compete for the other two singles positions will be senior 2 time letterman Raul Pareyon and Jason Yudiono, 1 year letterman Huy Ha (junior), and 1 year letterman Dillon Keefe and Ricardo Astiazaran (sophomores).Other players may emerge based on improvement from last year as well so it will be an interesting challenge for each player to establish themselves in singles action. Rounding out the other 2 doubles positions behind the Keefe/Vazquez team will be the aforementioned players as well as returning senior lettermen Neil Rens, Jaxon Smith, Alex Miyai; and returning lettermen junior Michael Balourdas and sophomore Lawrence Liu. Pushing the returning lettermen will be a strong and large group of players from the JV squad of 2011, including senior Stephen Celestino, juniors Edrick Drachenberg, Eli Ashenafi, and sophomores Patrick Hagan, Jake Alvord and Tyler Hadzicki. While this list has many players on it, other players from last year’s JV may have also made significant process and push for varsity action. We also have an extremely large contingent of around 12-18 freshmen participating in off-season practices with returning coaches Ruben and Marcos Carriedo, both of whom are graduates of Saint Augustine High School’s own tennis program. The team will be coached again by Tom Isaak in his 10th year as varsity coach, Todd Igelman as the junior varsity coach in his 2nd season, and Ruben (Saints 1961) and Marcos Carriedo (Saints 1960 and Athletic Hall-of-Fame for tennis), now serving in their 4th year as year-round assistants to both the JV and varsity team.

Matches are held at Morley Field and usually begin at 3pm – visitors are welcome at all matches. The season will begin with matches in early March and the schedule should be posted on-line by early January. With Co-Captains Neil Rens and Andrew Vazquez providing solid leadership, the team is excited for the upcoming season and we look forward to seeing you at a match or two!

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