On May 3, the second round of California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) division four playoffs took place at the Ventura College tennis courts. This match pitted the Foothill Technology high school (Foothill Tech) boys tennis team against Downey High School (Downey) and after the 18 sets of play, Foothill Tech took the win 12-6, moving on to the next round of CIF playoffs.
Overall, Foothill Tech wasn’t heavily contested in the singles play. On line one, Charlie Powers ‘27 defeated all three of his opponents with scores of 6-0, 6-1 and 6-0, respectively.
Powers stated, “I was expecting to win every match … I met that goal but I didn’t play as well as I wanted … I wasn’t winning many points off my backhand and my kick-serve wasn’t kicking out wide enough, but overall I felt good today.”
On line two of singles, Shaurya Shyam ‘25 performed similarly, winning both of his sets 6-3 and 6-1. Preston Alford ‘24, was subbed in for Shyam’s final set and also defeated his opponent 6-4.
As for line three, Aaditya Atluri ‘27 triumphed in two of the three matches he played with scores of 2-6, 6-0 and 6-4, respectively.
On the doubles side, Foothill Tech was met with substantial competition as they won only four of the nine sets played.
Greg Davis ‘26 and Dylan Files ‘26 of line one came away with a victory in both of the matches they played.
Files spoke on him and his partner’s performance, “We were working really well together, we were communicating more than we were in the past.”
Kiran Maserang ‘25 and Keiran Buxton ‘24 of line two won two of the three matches they played with scores of 7-5 and 6-3.
In the end Foothill Tech won eight sets on the singles side and four on the doubles side to some away with a final score of 12-6 allowing the Dragons to proceed onto the next round of CIF.
Head coach Dan Fitzpatrick spoke on the preparation going into CIF, “We’ve had a solid week of practice, working on our weaker aspects of our game and polishing the stronger aspects … We want to win CIF and we are prepared.”
Foothill Tech will compete next on May 6 in the CIF-SS preliminaries where they look to push on through to the next round.
