It was lather, rinse, and repeat for the Celebration High tennis team as both the boys and girls teams repeated as Orange Belt Conference champions at Gateway High on Tuesday.
For the Storm boys, it was a dominating performance; they captured all seven title matches to win their seventh straight OBC crown. They dropped just eight games in the seven finals.
Luis Henriquez led the Storm to the victory, easily winning his singles championship with an 8-2 win over Kyan Vonk of Gateway and then teamed with Gabriel Santos for an 8-1 win over Vonk and Gabriel Gonzales to win the No. 1 singles championship.
Santos (No. 2 singles), Spencer Sterry (No. 3) and Daniel Henriquez (No. 5) all swept through their brackets. The sweep was completed when Tobe Bernabe Matt Lam of Gateway, 8-4.
The CHS No. 2 doubles team of Sterry and Henrique breezed past Gateway’s Joahan Roberto and J’dan Dorismond, 8-0.
Gateway finished second (13 points), sending four singles and both doubles teams to championship Harmony (5) was third; Tohopekaliga and St. Cloud (4) tied for third and Osceola and Poinciana tied for fifth with one point each.
The Storm girls won their fourth straight OBC title, but it was close throughout. Celebration did most of its damage at the top of the line-up, where No. 1 singles Ekram Aquita and No. 2 Valeria Ramirez each won their brackets. Aquita, defeated Osceola’s Bianca Perez of Osceola (8-1) in her final; while Ramirez was an 8-5 winner over Amy Flores of Gateway.
Xyla Cruz of St. Cloud won at No. 3; Gateway’s Camila Lupa took No. 4 and Sara Ortiz of Harmony was an 8-6 winner over Gateway’s Darianna Jones at No. 5.
Although both of Celebration’s doubles teams fell in the finals; they picked up four valuable team points in the preliminaries and that was enough to give the Storm (13 points) the team title over Harmony and Gateway, who tied for second with 10 points. Osceola and St. Cloud tied for fourth (5), Tohopekaliga was sixth (3).
“We were definitely favored on the boys’ side but we never take anything for granted,” Storm Coach Darren Holt said. “We played really well in the tournament and everyone came through.
“We have developed a lot of players that started as six, seven and eight year-olds and grew up in our program. Having a strong program and reputation also attracts players to move to our community.”
Two weeks remain in the regular season before the start of district play. The Storm will compete in the District 4A-7 tournament at Winter Haven Tennis Center with Poinciana and seven Polk County Schools. Harmon, Tohopekaliga and St. Cloud play in 4A-6 at Viera; Gateway plays in 3A-5 at Lake Cane Tennis Center in Lecanto.
