By: J. Daniel Pearson for Positively Osceola
They took slightly different routes to get there, but both Celebration high school tennis teams put on dominating performances to win Orange Belt Conference championships this week.
The boys’ squad picked up eight valuable OBC All-Sports Trophy points, taking 17 of a possible 21 team points to easily out-distance second place Gateway (9). Tohopekaliga was third (8); while St. Cloud and Harmony tied for fourth (6).
The Lady Storm were even more dominant winning 20 of 21 matches in the tournament and posting four individual champions and both doubles championships to beat Gateway (14), St. Cloud (6) and Harmony (5).
While the margins were similar, the Storm boys had actually clinched the team championship before the finals were even held. With 12 team points after the semifinals and all five singles players and one of its two doubles teams advancing, neither second place Gateway (7) nor third place Tohopekaliga (6) had enough players advancing to the finals to challenge Celebration for the team title.
Still Juan Jimenez got things going early for Celebration on the final day, defeating Tohopekaliga’s Josue Dickson 8-3 at number one singles. Cayman Pearce followed with a 8-4 win over Harmony’s Lincoln Johnson to take the number two singles title; before Gabriel Santos won at number three with an 8-4 win over Harmony’s Juan Pietro to extend the Celebration lead to 16-7. Gateway’s Matt Lam finally got the Panthers on the board with an injury default win over Celebration’s Aiden Dai, but Spencer Sterry gave Celebration four individual champions with an 8-1 win over Gateway’s J’Den Dorismond.
Celebration also won the number one doubles line with Jimenez and Pearce winning over St. Cloud’s Maxim Jezek and Jake Chisholm. Although the Storm’s number two doubles team of Dai and Santos was seeded first, Dai’s injury forced them to default in a semifinal match. That opened the door for Gateway’s number two team of freshman Erik Dimitrov and sophomore Lam to take an 8-5 decision over Harmony’s Pietro and Giancarlo Camargo in the final for their second title to go with Lams win at #4 singles.
In theory, there was a possibility of some drama in the girls’ championship.
Although Celebration advanced all five singles lines and both doubles teams to the championship round, the Lady Panthers won 13 of 14 matches through the semifinals and trailed by just one point heading into the finals (14-13).
But the Storm quickly put the title away, as Valeria Lopez (#1), Diana Perez-Nunez (#2), Gabriel Castro (#3), Naya Wise-Beaumont (#4) all won; while both doubles teams (#1 Lopez and Perez-Nunez and #2 Alexa Perez and Wise-Beaumont) were also victorious to give the Storm a near-perfect final team score of 20.
With the exception of Alexa Perez and Wise-Beaumont’s 8-7 (7-3) victory in a tiebreaker, none of the Storm’s final winning matches were particularly close. Lopez won 8-1 over Isabella Halk (St. Cloud), Perez-Nunez was a 8-0 winner over Gateway’s Aurelia Cooks, Castro was an 8-1 victor over Lady Panther Zulaika Hanfi, Beaumont was 8-2 over Gateway’s Karima Hanifi. Number one doubles team of Lopez and Perez-Nunez easily outdistanced Gateway’s Aurelia and Anaila Cooks.
Gateway’s lone bright spot in the finals came at #5 singles where Anisa Hanifi defeated Alexa Perez, 8-5.
Two weeks remain in the regular season before the start of district tournaments, Apr. 15
