TEAM

DIVISION I GIRLS

Desert Mountain

No. 2 Desert Mountain defeated No. 1 Hamilton 5-2 to claim the program’s ninth title and seventh in the last nine years. 

No. 1: Desert Mountain Julia Zhang def. Isha Kaushik 6-2, 6-0. 

No. 2: Hamilton’s Annemarie Beach def. Kaley Gravel 7-6 (8-6), 6-1. 

No. 3: Desert Mountain’s Julianna Dal Bo def. Natasha Aghenta 6-1, 6-3.

No. 4: Desert Mountain’s Hartleigh Kelly def. Nandini Gupta 2-1 default.

No. 5: Hamilton’s Zoe Jones def. Allison Ortiz

No. 6: Desert Mountain’s Rhianna Ortiz def. Suravi Gupta 2-6, 6-2, 10-7. 

Doubles

No. 1: Desert Mountain’s Gravel/Zhang def. Aghenta/Beach 8-1. 

“They came back from spring break vacation, and I thought, ‘Oh, what’s going on here (after losing to Hamilton),” seven-year coach Kim Dever said. "But it’s OK. We had a purpose today and today was to just take as many singles as possible and then take it home with our doubles. So we are very proud of our Desert Mountain girls. They worked out all year long and left it out on the court today. And I can’t tell you how proud I am as a coach. (No. 1 doubles team) Julia Zhang and Kaley Gravel, they just play like clockwork. The other one knows what the other is doing. One is poaching at the net while the other is doing the returning. It’s like music, but the funny part was our No. 3 (Rachael Ortiz and Rhianna Ortiz) were actually winning too and they had this thing going with whoever wins first ... it was like, go, go, go. It was awesome."  

DIVISION I BOYS

HamiltonNo. 1 Hamilton defeated No. 2 Brophy 5-0 for the school’s first tennis team championship.  

No. 2: Hamilton’s Ethan Cooley def. Brendan Linstrom 0-6, 6-3, 10-6.

No. 3: Hamilton’s Rishabh Bendre def. Layton Fincham 6-3, 6-2.

No. 4: Hamilton’s Mason Berry def. Haan Lee 6-1, 6-3. 

No. 5: Hamilton’s Alejandro Rivera def. Lev Jaffee 6-0, 6-1.

No. 6: Hamilton’s Aarian Warkar def. Brady Nelson 6-0, 6-1. 

“It means a ton,” said second-year head coach Jeremy Sweet, who’s been coaching at Hamilton for 14 years. “There’s a lot of history in this program, going back to coach (Phil) Gonzales. This is, in my opinion, still his program. I coached the girls for many years and took over the boys and was excited to really get this one for him, his wife and all of the hard working, dedicated, selfless boys. They put it all out there for this. You felt it. We beat (Brophy) 8-1 in the regular season, and I told the boys, ‘(Brophy) didn’t care about the regular season score and neither should we.' And you felt it. Their crowd was strong. Their game was strong. Every match was tight. Every set was pins and needles. You were playing the pedigree. You felt it. We are going to start building our own pedigree now. We lose one senior in our top six. (Freshman) Ethan Cooley, our No. 2, clinched (the final win). He lost the first set 0-6, won the second set and then won the tiebreaker, where he was down 2-6 in the 10-point tiebreaker. He came back to tie it at 6-6, and I think he won eight points in a row and hit an ace to close it out. It was crazy. We nicknamed him the Serial killer. If you watch an old 80s scary movie, that serial killer never stops coming."   

DIVISION II GIRLS

SalpointeSalpointe defended its title with a 5-0 win over Catalina Foothills. 

No. 1: Salpointe’s Lacey Kaufman def. Gracie Petrow 6-1, 6-1. 

No. 2: Salpointe’s Dillon Nye def. Brianna Mildebrant 6-0, 6-0.

No. 3: Salpointe’s Sasha Carrillo def. Maddie Kuma 6-3, 6-1.

No. 5: Salpointe’s Isabella Estrada def. Samantha Hickman 6-0, 6-1.

No. 6: Salpointe’s Caroline Coomler def. Della Stoldt 6-2, 6-1.

“The girls were very confident,” said Theresa “Gibby” Sperduto, who’s been coaching at Salpointe for more than 15 years and won her second team title. “They respect (Catalina Foothill's) games. They knew we beat them during the regular season, but this is state. We practice every morning and diligently work out before our matches and we earned it.” 

DIVISION II BOYS

Catalina FoothillsCatalina Foothills defended its title after defeating Notre Dame 5-0. 

No. 1: Catalina Foothills’ Santiago A. Jaime def. Dean Lanford 6-4, 4-6, 10-8.

No. 2: Catalina Foothills’ Ahmed Bozdogan def. James Gianakakos 6-3, 6-0.

No. 4: Catalina Foothills’ Rajen Fadia def. Ian Bradley 6-3, 3-6, 10-7.

No. 5: Catalina Foothills’ Finn Griffs def. Cody Smith 6-4, 6-7, 10-6. 

No. 6: Catalina Foothills’ Kai Sadalla def. Grafton Torczan 6-2, 6-4. 

“It was tough this year,” first-year coach Nick Uphoff said. “We lost three guys after last year. But the guys showed up every day focused. We worked really hard in practice. We got them working on intensity, and I really attribute our success this season to our competitive nature and culture we’ve built here. They are always looking for competition every day. We put pressure on every day, and it works. We got three sets tiebreakers today and won them all. So I was really proud of that. The biggest thing is that in the toughest moments our boys stepped up. It’s so tough in tennis to keep hitting those solid balls and not go back to dinking. But I really believe our guys stepped up and won the right way by really hitting their shots."

DIVISION III GIRLS

Rancho Solano PrepRancho Solano defeated defending champ Pusch Ridge 5-2 to win its campus' first tennis title. This is the first time that the program also experienced winning a playoff round as well.

No.1: Rancho Solano’s Maya Litt def. Taryn Martin 6-1, 6-4. 

No. 2: Rancho Solano’s Noemie Delacollette def. Micaela Nagel 6-4, 6-2. 

No. 3 Rancho Solano’s Chloe Okrasinski def. Brady Imes 6-1, 6-1. 

No. 4 Pusch Ridge’s Noelle Sunukjian de. Sydney Hedges 6-1, 6-3. 

No. 5 Rancho Solano’s Aleya Chahal def. Melaney Johnson 6-4, 6-1. 

No. 6 Pusch Ridge’s Pearl Kulvatonyou def. Jacqueline Schatzberg 6-2, 7-5.

Doubles

No. 2 Delacollette/Hedges def. Johnson/Martin.     

“It’s still sinking in, but it’s pretty amazing,” eleven-year coach Darren Otten said. “This group of girls are very special and young. They are all freshmen and sophomores. It won’t be the last (title). I’ll be bold and say it. I’m just proud to be part of it. Who was going to come through, and luckily we had four singles wins so we had the cushion (going into doubles) and just needed one and the second doubles team played great over there. They pulled it out."  

DIVISION III BOYS

ALA-West Foothills

ALA-West Foothills was without head coach Chris John for a good reason: He attended his daughter’s wedding. But his boys still took care of business, defeating The Gregory School 5-2 to become the first team at ALA-West Foothills to win a team title. 

No. 1: ALA-West Foothills’ Gian Marrero def. Anthi Christoforidis 6-1, 7-5.

No. 2: ALA-West Foothills’ Ryan Nicholl def. John Samii 6-2, 6-0.

No. 3: ALA-West Foothills’ Drake Mills def. Marcus Swenson 2-6, 7-6 (6-4), 11-9.

No. 4: The Gregory School’s Thomas Escobedo def. Brendon Kurzawski 6-2, 6-4.

No. 5: The Gregory School’s Carson Namanny def. Iziic Morales 6-1, 6-2. 

No. 6 ALA-West Foothills’ Aaron Zerba def. Nikolas Larson 6-4, 3-6, 10-3.

Doubles

No. 2 Kurzawski/Marrero def. Christoforidis/Escobedo 8-1. 

Ryan Nicholl: "It feels amazing just to win it. It’s a new school and it’s cool that we are here already. It’s fun to compete and win. It’s very satisfying."

Iziic Morales: “We won as a team. I lost my match, but I knew I had my teammates to rely on and had my back to get the win today. We did it.”

Gian Marrero: “We’re a community. We are a brotherhood. We all got together and had a talk before and locked in. We all relied on each other, and it was really awesome. It means the world to us.”

SINGLES 

DIVISION I GIRLS

Japneet Kaur

Boulder Creek’s Japneet Kaur def. teammate Michelle Bullock 7-6 (6-4), 6-4 to win her second singles title in three years. 

“It was really tough,” said Kaur about facing Bullock. “We are really good friends. We have classes together and definitely a lot of like really nice feelings. I’m glad we were able to play a good clean game of tennis. I’m really happy that we both fought hard and played well. This is pretty awesome obviously. It’s as good as it gets. But again, it’s my teammate. You want the best for both of us, but it’s definitely exciting.” 

DIVISION I BOYS

Vikram Narendran

Rincon University’s Vikram Narendran def. Brophy’s Samir Sumar 6-1, 6-4 to three-peat. 

“Coming into the tournament I was really scared,” Narendran, a senior, said. “But I just told myself I wanted to put more work in than anybody else in the tournament, and if I did that, I told myself I was going to be happy with the result no matter what. Just keeping it together in the tight moments was key today. I think starting strong was big. I took the first set pretty quickly and made a huge difference and took a lot of pressure off. In the second set things got tight again, but in the tight moments I just stuck to my gut and to what I’ve worked on all of my life playing this sport.”

DIVISION II GIRLS

Dillon NyeNo. 1 Dillon Nye of Salpointe def. No. 2 Catalina Foothills’ Gracie Petrow 6-2, 6-2.

DIVISION II BOYS

Grady Callahan

United States Military Academy U.S. Army appointee Grady Callahan of Eastmark def. No. 3 Dean Lanford of Notre Dame 4-6, 6-3, 10-8.

DIVISION III GIRLS

Noelle OhNo. 2 Scottsdale Prep’s Noelle Oh def. No. 1 Hailey Bostwick of Cicero Prep 6-3, 6-1.

DIVISION III BOYS

Ayden Thielsen No. 1 Ayden Thielsen of Gilbert Classical def. No. 3 Dean Morthland of Pusch Ridge 6-3, 6-1.

DOUBLES

DIVISION I GIRLS

Amaia and Maliyah McGintySisters Amaia and Maliyah McGinty of Canyon View def. No. 5 Kaley Gravel/Hartleigh Kelly of Desert Mountain 6-1, 6-3. 

DIVISION I BOYS

Nirvaan Patel and Rishabh BendreNo. 2 Nirvaan Patel/Rishabh Bendre of Hamilton def. No. 1 Conor Cruse/Kane Mlnarik of Chaparral 7-6 (7-5), 6-4. 

DIVISION II GIRLS

Emma Murphy and Lacey KaufmanNo. 1 Lacey Kaufman/Emma Murphy of Salpointe def. No. 3 Emma Bartruff/Avery Eliscu of Canyon del Oro 6-1, 6-4. 

DIVISION II BOYS

Andrew Schmidt and Emiliano Manzo

Unseeded Emiliano Manzo/Andrew Schmidt of Marana Mountain View def. No. 5 Finn Griffs/Aaron Zeldin of Catalina Foothills 6-4, 6-3. 

DIVISION III GIRLS

Bryn Hermenau and Bianca CarboneNo. 2 Bianca Carbone/Bryn Hermenau of Cicero Prep def. No. 1 Maya Litt/Chloe Okrasninski of Rancho Solano 6-4, 3-6, 13-11. 

DIVISION III BOYS 

Braden Huish and Isaac Palmer 

No. 3 Braden Huish/Isaac Palmer of Thatcher def. No. 4 Drake Mills/Ryan Nicholl of ALA-West Foothills 6-3, 6-3.