Sharks tennis prepares for league title

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Left: Junior Jack Johnson hits a backhand during a Malibu High School tennis practice. Right: Sophomore transfer student Stephen Handal hits a forehand during a routine practice at Malibu High School. Handal is set to be one of the Sharks’ starting singles players this season. Davis Thacker / TMT

Boys tennis team’s mix of youth and experience has them looking for a league title.

By Davis Thacker / Special to The Malibu Times

It’s business as usual for the Malibu High School boys tennis team. After finishing second in the Tri-Valley league last season (their third straight season with a top-three finish in league), the team is looking to achieving a league title that has eluded them for the past couple of seasons.

The pursuit for a league title will be challenging for the Sharks, who lost their number one singles player in Skyler Davis, as well as one of their strongest doubles teams from last season in Tuffy Kohrs and Josh Buckton. In addition to their player losses, the Sharks will also have to get past an Oaks Christian team that lost only one of their starters from last year’s championship. The Lions have won the Tri-Valley League the past three seasons.

However, the team also has plenty of reasons to believe they can win the league championship. The boys added two new players to their starting lineup, as freshman Gabriel Rapoport and sophomore transfer Stephen Handal look to join senior cocaptain Greg Bogie as the three starting singles players.

“So far, the team has been very competitive,” Handal said. “There are a lot of good players on the team and because of this I think we have a lot of potential.”

Another reason the Sharks remain hopeful of their chances for a league title this season is the margin of victory that Oaks Christian had over them last season. In their first match-up against the Lions, Davis was forced to retire because of cramps after beating Oak’s number one singles player Jack Sanford. The Sharks and Lions would go on to tie 9-9, but lost in games. In their second match-up of the season, the Sharks were without two of their doubles players, and fell again to the Lions. Because of these results, the Sharks believe that beating the Lions this season is not out of the question. “Things are looking really good this year,” Johnson said. “We have two great incoming players, so things are starting to look up.”

The boys had their first match of their young season on Feb. 28, a home match against Channel Islands High School. The Sharks won handily, with Rapoport and Handal earning their first victories as Sharks.

The Sharks’ doubles teams also showed promise, as the team’s number one doubles pair swept their matches, as did juniors Andy Borenzweig and Bin Kaplan.

The Sharks’ third doubles team is still being decided, and the team will look to use their next coming pre-league matches to test out each of the contending teams. While the addition of Rapoport and Handal is the big story of the Sharks’ early season, the team as a whole remains largely experienced.

The team boasts a second team all league singles player in Bogie as well as two second team all league doubles teams. In addition to this, all of these players have played in multiple CIF playoffs game, and the Sharks will look to lean on these players’ experience as the season progresses.

The Sharks also have experience in their coaching staff. Head Coach Bruce Young is entering his 7th year at the helm of the boys tennis program at Malibu High School and assistant coach Gary Hughes is entering his third year with the Sharks. Young and Hughes, who also coach the girls program at MHS, believe this team is one of the deeper teams they have had in recent years.

“We are deeper this year than the past couple of years,” Hughes said. “Instead of the usual drop-off between the fourth and fifth best guy on the team, there really is not that big of a difference between a lot of our players.”

Young added that balance would be key to beating teams like Oaks Christian and achieving the Sharks’ ultimate goal of advancing deep into CIF.

“ We have balance between singles and doubles for the first time in a long time,” said Young. “And I think that should definitely help us down the road.”

The Sharks continue their pre-league matches this week with a match against Simi Valley High School on Tuesday and New Roads High School on Wednesday.