Villa Park doubles team advances to next round

SOUTH EL MONTE – Between the white lines on the tennis court, momentum can shift in a heartbeat. Whether it’s one shot, one point or one adjustment, a team can go from being on the wrong end of a thumping to in command.

That kind of momentum shift helped keep Villa Park seniors Eric Wilson and Jimmy Fernandez in the CIF-SS Boys Individual Tennis Championships instead of heading home Thursday from Whittier Narrows Tennis Center with their season over.

Fernandez and Wilson lost the first set, 6-1, to Santa Margarita's Jameson Lee and Henry Stiepel in the round of 32. Instead of packing it in, Villa Park’s top doubles team moved both players back against Santa Margarita’s big serves.

And from there, things changed.

“We figured we might as well go for it,” Wilson said. “This could have been our last match representing Villa Park, so we figured we’d better give it everything we got.”

After making the defensive change, Villa Park won the second set, 6-0, before winning the match in the third set, 6-4.

“Things swung right away,” Fernandez said. “After the first game or so, I could tell.”

The action Thursday served as the precursor to the final four rounds of the CIF-SS individual tournament, which will take place Friday and Saturday at the Seal Beach Tennis Club.

University sophomore Stefan Menichella was the only one from his team who didn’t receive a bye into the round of 16, but he relished the chance to work out some kinks in his game against Cate’s Blake Mackall. Menichella won the match, 6-2, 6-4.

“It was a good thing for me because I haven’t been playing well over the past week,” he said. “I’ve been working with a ball machine the past few days and really grinded it out, trying to get into a rhythm. It was good to play a match and keep that going.”

Servite freshman Tanner Smith lost to Chadwick’s Maximilian Hawkins 6-2, 6-0. 

Dana Hills senior Matt LaBarre and his doubles partner, sophomore Chris Bloom, also advanced, defeating Troy’s Andy Nguyen and Chetan Muhugala, 6-4, 6-3.

“We just want to keep going into the next round,” LaBarre said. “The other teams just get better and better, and in some ways, it’s actually a surprise to me that we’ve been able to come this far. But we’re playing pretty well.”