Piedmont boys tennis No. 1 makes NCS
Piedmont High School sophomore Lucas Smolko won the West Alameda County Conference Foothill division singles championship, earning a berth in the North Coast Section Division 2 championships.
Smolko defeated second-seeded Neo Chai of Bishop O’Dowd in the final, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2. The tournament was held May 2-3 at Chabot College.
Smolko also won the division’s Player of the Year honor.
Smolko opened the tournament with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Bishop O’Dowd’s Ollie Pakzad. Smolko followed that up by defeating Castro Valley’s Advaith Sathyanand, 6-1, 6-2. In the semifinals, he downed Castro Valley’s Guhan Anandkumar, 6-3, 6-0.
Nate Welch also competed in the bracket for the Highlanders, winning his first round match over Henry Andreini of Berkeley, 6-0, 6-0. Welch then lost to Castro Valley’s Rahul Ramkumar, 6-1, 6-1.
Also in the bracket for Piedmont was Emilio Misra, who lost to Anandkumar in the first round, 6-1, 6-1. Misra then defeated Bishop O’Dowd’s Henry Hoffman in the consolation bracket, 8-4, before falling to Pakzad, 8-4. Pakzad ended up winning the consolation bracket.
Ben Davis and Joey Assalian took the doubles consolation championship with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Alameda’s Kyle Banducci and Keenan Chan. Davis and Assalian lost their opening match to Bishop O’Dowd’s Marcello Sachelari and Oliver Liao, 6-1, 6-0. The Piedmont pair then defeated Castro Valley’s Elijah Song and Dylan Kwan, 8-3, before downing their teammates Hunter Fasteau and Luca LaForte, 8-6 in the consolation semifinals.
Fasteau and LaForte lost their first round match to Bishop O’Dowd’s Suriyan Sokol and Jack Song-Schnitzler, 6-2, 7-5. Fasteau and LaForte then beat Alameda’s Cayden Dang and Finn Thornton, 8-6.
Nick King and Willie Tenney opened with a win over Castro Valley’s Anson Chan and Matthew Rodriguez, 6-4, 6-0. They then lost to Bishop O’Dowd’s James Hollins and Jack Gonzalez, 6-3, 6-4. That was followed by a loss to Berkeley’s Sasha Balasubramanian and Ben Taylor, 8-2.
King and Tenney earned all-WACC honors for their work during the season. Welch and LaForte received honorable mention.
Piedmont will almost certainly earn a berth in the NCS team championships with brackets to be announced May 10. First round matches will be May 13. The NCS Division 2 individual tournament will be held at Vintage-Napa on May 8-9.