Well, the 2013 Laguna Boys’ season is finally underway and off to a good start.

We scored a 12-6 win against Orcutt Academy last week that featured a clean sweep from our singles guys (Ben Furukawa, Tristan Prinz, and Phillip Hicks). In addition, Jack Espy and Martin Barnick were in fine form, chipping in two wins and playing the number one team close. I know how hard all five of those guys have been working since last spring so I expected them to play well, but it’s still exciting for me to see them get off to a successful start.

Today, we played Rio Mesa in Oxnard. This is a team that beat us pretty easily last year (13-5) so we had modest expectations coming in, but it quickly became clear that we would be in a tight battle all afternoon.

The match was tied 3-3 after the first round thanks in large part to Ben’s resounding 6-1 win against Rio Mesa’s number one player. In the second round, we only managed to add two wins, so we went into the third round down 5-7. In the final round, we picked up two quick wins in doubles, before dropping sets at number three singles and doubles. With two matches left to play and the score 7-9, Ben came through with a 6-0 win.

At that point, we knew that we were up by a few games if things came down to a tie. However, after going down 4-0 against the number one player from Rio Mesa, Tristan had a long road back to deliver us that necessary 9th win. The score went to 4-1, then 4-3, then Tristan pulled ahead 5-4. After being unable to close out the match on serve, Tristan broke again and then held serve to give us a ninth set and a 75-73 win.

Due credit must also go to Benji Sorensen and Eddie Conk for getting a sweep on the day in doubles. They’re just starting to get back into the swing of things after just finishing basketball season but were a big part of our win today.

It was great seeing Chip and Lori Conk coming all the way to Oxnard to root us on today. Thanks for coming out! For the rest of you, hopefully this post will hold you over until our next home match on Friday against Nordoff High School at the Municipal Courts.

No photos for this post, but I may try to snap a few shots before the next one.

-Trevor