Boys' tennis ends CIF streak

Claire GoldbergStaff WriterThough San Marino stopped its California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) hopes in the semi-finals, boys’ tennis and its new coach celebrated their progress this season and plan for success in the upcoming season.Co-captain Robby Gottesman (’13) is nostalgic about leaving his team. He said that the people he formed relationships with on the team mean more to him than the matches he won or lost. Despite this optimism, Gottesman did bring out the hard truth in tennis’s last loss.“I think the last tennis match was underwhelming,” Gottesman said. “We all wanted to end the season well, whether we lost or not, and the final score against San Marino was a little disappointing.”Coach Patrick Massy said he had an overall successful first year as head coach. The team made it far in CIF and won the majority of its games.“The team this year did phenomenal,” Massy said. “Besides the fact that we lost league to Beverly, we showed up at individuals and took the singles and doubles individuals titles. [We] made it to the semi-finals of team CIF and lost to a team that was very good.”Tennis’ loss in CIF against a former Division I team was a disappointment to the highly motivated team, but the players are working hard to improve their game for next season.“Despite our team effort we could not match [San Marino’s] team’s overall greater skill,” Elliot Fleck (’14) said. “It was evident that they belonged in Division I as they should not have beaten us 17-1 in the semi-finals...We are getting better as individuals, participating in tournaments, and working hard to win CIF next year.”All in all, tennis had a great overall season and many of the team members saw the friendships formed with other teammates as the high points of the season.“CIF was successful in some ways but it’s always tough to get taken out,” Cyrus Setayesh (’15) said. “Next year we’re going to go all the way and we’re going to take out anyone [who] gets in our way.”cgoldberg@thesamohi.com