VC men's tennis freshman Priyank Soni had quite the day Friday. After a Western State Conference semifinal victory over doubles teammate Adrien Etiemble, he then defeated teammate Solal Cherqui to earn the conference championship in the singles draw. If battling two teammates in two singles matches was not enough, Soni then teamed up with Etiemble in the WSC doubles championship, dropping a marathon contest with multiple match points for both sides.
In the singles semifinals, No. 1-seeded Cherqui easily defeated the No. 5-seed from Los Angles Pierce 6-2, 6-0 to advance to the final. Meanwhile, Soni, the No. 6-seed, battled Ventura teammate and doubles partner Etiemble, the No. 7-seed. The match went the distance as Soni prevailed 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.
In the singles championship, Soni continued his success, upsetting Cherqui 6-4, 7-5 to bring home the gold.
Then the doubles finals began as Soni and Etiemble, the draw's top seed, battled the No. 2 seeded duo from Los Angeles Pierce.
In a wild, wild match, the Pirate duo found themselves down two breaks in the first set, 4-0, before coming all the way back to force a tiebreaker at 6-6. Unfortunately for Soni and Etiemble, they came up short in the tiebreaker, 7-5, to drop the first set of the match.
In the second set, the Pirates raced to a 5-0 advantage before holding off the Pierce comeback to take the set 6-4.
In the super tiebreaker, Soni and Etiemble found themselves down 5-0 before coming back to have two match points at 9-8 and 10-9. The LAPC team rebounded for their own match points before the Pirates had another chance at the conference title at 13-12. The Pierce duo then won the final three points of the match to capture the conference crown, 7-5, 4-6, 15-13.
With the close of the WSC Championships, the attention for the Pirates returns to team play. VC, the No. 2 seed in the CCCAA SoCal Regional Playoffs, will host No. 3 Riverside on Tuesday April 17 with doubles play beginning at 2:00 pm.
The CCCAA State Singles and Doubles Championships at The Ojai Tournament begin Thursday April 26 and run through Sunday April 29. VC will have six entrants in singles including Soni, Cherqui, Etiemble, Rafael Dunan, Augustin Lestelle and Rodrigo Perdigao. In doubles play, VC qualified four teams, Soni and Etiemble, Cherqui and Dunan, Perdigao and Lestelle, and Alexander Martin and Jakob Rinschen. Unfortunately, only three pairs can be entered, so a decision will be made before the entry deadline which doubles teams will compete.