Breakers tennis flying high

SAN CLEMENTE “” The match was considered a sort of litmus test, a chance for the Laguna Beach High boys’ tennis team to see how far it had progressed.

The Breakers again weren’t challenged Thursday, but in this case it was a good thing after a 14-4 romp over St. Margaret’s at the Rancho San Clemente Tennis & Fitness Club.

Laguna Beach won eight of nine singles sets, including sweeps by sophomore Jake Michaels at No. 1 (6-1, 6-1, 6-0) and senior Chris Lavery at No. 2. Benito Romeo, another sophomore, won two sets at No. 3 singles.

Lavery, Romeo and freshman Hutton McKenna were out earlier in the season, but Laguna Beach (7-6) has been picking up steam in recent weeks.

“I’m happy about this performance, top to bottom,” Coach Aaron Talarico said. “Guys won the matches they were supposed to win. Singles play, taking eight out of nine [sets], that was huge. That really helps.

”... This was a divisional opponent that was listed in the [CIF Southern Section Division IV] rankings at the beginning [of the season]. Really, we dominated them today. It makes me feel good, but there’s a lot of good teams in Division IV. I’m not taking anything for granted. We’ve just got keep working; we’ve still got to win league.”

The Breakers, ranked No. 6 in the division, want to get all the competition they can as they clearly seem to be the class of the Orange Coast League. In four league matches so far, they’ve won 67 of 72 sets (93%).

The defending league champions seem to have few weaknesses, with a good mix of singles and doubles. The No. 1 doubles team of senior Rex Miller and junior Mikey Rubel won a pair of sets Thursday before being subbed out. Their replacements, Aaron Fong and Alex Gromet, beat the St. Margaret’s No. 3 team by a 6-1 score.

Christian O’Connor and McKenna won two sets against St. Margaret’s at No. 2 doubles, and Paul Solomon and Hunter Moskow won a set. Two of the three doubles losses were close losses in tiebreakers.

“The first [set] we came out on fire,” Miller said, referring to a 6-2 win over the Tartans’ No. 1 squad of Alex Ramadan and Michael Friedman. “We knew it was a big match, so we stepped our game up. The other team, they’re pretty good, but I think we played as well as we could have ... It’s a huge match, because we might see them again in CIF. This was like our first major test of the season and we pulled through, so I’m pretty stoked.”

Michaels, who has been a rock at No. 1 singles, found little to complain about his play.

“I’ve been playing a lot and pressing hard,” he said. “I think I’m going to see some improvement.”

Then, he made an interesting comparison to last year’s Breakers squad, which lost in the second round of the Division IV playoffs.

“We’ve finally got everyone in the lineup,” Michaels said. “We’re definitely a lot better than when we started the season. Compared to last year, we probably would beat our team from last year 14-4, at least. We’ve improved a lot.

“I think we showed pretty well. [Nonleague wins over Foothill and St. Margaret’s] are supposed to be some big matches for us and I think we did real well. I’m happy with our performance.”

Laguna Beach is off for Spring Break and the Breakers return to action with another nonleague match April 20 against Beckman.