Race for all-county OBC Sports title tightens heading into other spring championships
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Celebration picked up 16 valuable team points as both the boys and girls tennis teams took Orange Belt Conference championships. PHOTO/RYAN ADAMS
Heading into Tuesday’s finals of the Orange Belt Conference tennis tournament, it was just a matter of how much the Storm boys would win their sixth straight championship by. With Celebration sitting at 13 points through the semifinals and sending five singles and a doubles team to the championship matches, the Storm had an insurmountable lead over second place Gateway and third place Harmony. The only suspense was how big the final margin would be.
Celebration extended its lead, winning four of five singles titles and one double championship to finish with 17 points. Gateway (9) was second, Tohopekaliga (8) was third and St. Cloud and Harmony (6) tied for fourth.
Juan Jimenez got things going early for Celebration, defeating Tohopekaliga’s Josue Dickson 8-3 at No. 1 singles. Cayman Pearce followed with an 8-4 win over Harmony’s Lincoln Johnson to take No. 2; Gabriel Santos won at No. 3 with an 8-4 win over Harmony’s Juan Pietro. Gateway’s Matt Lam finally got the Panthers on the board with a default win over Celebration’s Aiden Dai at No. 4, but Spencer Sterry gave Celebration four individual champions with an 8-1 win over Gateway’s J’Den Dorismond at No. 5.
Celebration also won the No. 1 doubles line with Jimenez and Pearce winning over St. Cloud’s Maxim Jezek and Jake Chisholm. The Storm’s No. 2 doubles team of Dai and Santos lost by injury default when Dai was hurt in a semifinal match. That opened the door for Gateway’s No. 2 team of freshman Erik Dimitrov and sophomore Lam to take an 8-5 decision over Harmony’s Pietro and Giancarlo Camargo.
While the Storm girls comfortably won their third straight OBC crown, nothing was decided heading into the finals. Celebration went undefeated through the semifinals but Gateway won all but one match in the preliminaries and trailed the Storm by just one point, 14-13, going into the finals.
But the Storm dominated Tuesday. Valeria Lopez (No. 1), Diana Perez-Nunez (2), Gabriel Castro (3), Naya Wise-Beaumont (4) all won while both doubles teams were also victorious to give the Storm a near-perfect final score of 20.
Except for 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 won 8-0 over Gateway’s Aurelia Cooks, Castro was an 8-1 winner over Lady Panther Zulaika Hanfi, and Beaumont was 8-2 over Gateway’s Karima Hanifi. No. 1 doubles team Lopez and Diana Perez easily outdistanced Gateway’s Aurelia and Anaila Cooks.
Gateway, behind No. 5 singles champion Anisa Hanafi, was second with 14 team points; St. Cloud was third (6) and Harmony was fourth (5).
With titles in boys’ and girls’ tennis, the Storm pick up 16 team points and now have 108 points towards the Orange Belt Conference All-Sports Trophy. Harmony, who led through winter sports, took the flag football championship and remains in first place with 119.5 points; while St. Cloud, which won the boys’ weightlifting title, picked up a net one point on Harmony in tennis and is in second place with 115.5 points. Tournaments in track, softball, baseball, boys’ volleyball and possibly fishing (if five teams participate) remain and will determine the All-Sports Champion.
