Baldwin nets conference tennis title

After moving up from a lower conference, the Baldwin boys’ tennis team cleaned house by becoming Conference B1 champions with a 13-1 season.

Knowing the competition was going to be tougher, the Bruins adjusted their prep ever so slightly to be pristine in the season according to coach Jane Hayes.

“A few more [players] this year decided to play a little but more off season than they had before, so I think they probably put in a little more practice in the off season,” Hayes said. “A few of [the players] were nervous about [the new conference], a few of them were excited about it. A few of them were very excited about playing more competitive teams.”

All said and done, the team had a great season according to Hayes.

“Typically, when teams move up in any conference, in any sport, they’re a little nervous; a lot of times you don’t do so great because you’re playing against tougher teams than you played before,” she said. “This team not only succeeded but ended up winning the conference they just began playing in, so that’s pretty awesome for them.”

The team effort was really hammered down from the top down: “A lesson that I kept stressing to them was [that] they couldn’t do this by themselves… Just because you won your match, we need everyone to win their match. We need everyone to come together to cheer for one another, even though you won your match you need to come cheer for the rest of them.”

It turns out the Bruins have a habit of winning, since they won their conference last spring as well. One of common threads from last year to this year was the teamwork, even in an individual sport like tennis.

“A completely team effort, for sure,” Hayes said. “We couldn’t have won all those matches with just the singles or just the doubles; we needed both. Both of them succeeded very well, and we couldn’t have done it without each portion of the team.”

The success was distributed evenly among the team.

“Our first [Luke Lastique], second [Brandon Firth] and third [Chad Iles] singles were fabulous. Most of their matches were done in two sets, I think maybe one and two had one match that went three sets,” Hayes explained, also noting all three of the singles players are sophomores.

The doubles pairs were Abiel Cervantes and Lucas Mokund in the first team, the second team containing Christian Piche and Jordan Diouf, Lucas Duet and Ryan Hobson in the third tandem, and Samuel Maurice and Jerome Wallace comprising the fourth.

When looking amongst the squad for senior leadership, that title went to Cervantes, a senior. “Cervantes is our team captain, he’s been with us the last four years,” Hayes explained.

To add to the gravity of this season, this was the first Baldwin team to advance from the conference championship to county playoffs since 1994.

“Baldwin boy’s tennis hasn’t been to a county playoff game in 30 years,” Hayes said. “Last year conference 4 didn’t send anyone to the playoffs so this team is the first in 30 years. Unfortunately we lost in the first round but it was a wonderful experience for all of them, and they should be very proud that they got there.”

Hayes summed up her team and the season they had as such: “they are really a special group of tennis players, but they’re even a better group of kids.”