This past Friday, the #9 LACES boys tennis team upset No.1 seed Van Nuys High in the quarterfinals of the Division I CIF City Sectional by a score of 19-10.5. Led by doubles pairing Sean Cho and Linus Allen-Auerbach, LACES jumped out to an early lead behind all of the doubles pairs, who collectively won 8-1.
Coach Philip Chung had given them a few inspirational words before the match on Friday.
“The message was that they’ve worked very hard and need to keep up their efforts,” he recalled. “No matter where they end up, I’m proud of them, But I’d also really like to win.”
A strong effort from Senior Sean Cho, captain of the Varsity Tennis Team, helped swing the match for the Unicorns.
“Sean made the sacrifice to play doubles when we needed him there on Friday,” continued Chung. “He’s normally a singles player and he respectfully accepted his role for doubles even though he’s not a fan of it. He is the best doubles player on the team however, as he and Senior Linus Allen-Auerbach, came back from a 5-1 deficit and defeated their opponents by a match score of 7-5.”
Sophomore James Fonclaud, singles player for LACES, had positive things to say about his team’s performance on Friday.
“I’m very proud of what we did,” he said. “I think we were all a little bit nervous to play Van Nuys at first, but we all played very well. We were the better team.”
Prior to their matchup with Van Nuys, LACES defeated #8 Cleveland 16-13.5 on April 22nd. Up next, the boys’ team will visit #5 North Hollywood on April 30 in the semifinals, who upset #4 El Camino Real on the 26th.
