Piedmont High School’s boys tennis team has a pair of seniors at the top of the ladder and a bunch of underclassmen that portend a bright future.
Lukas Smolko returns to the No. 1 singles position after losing in the North Coast Section Division 2 championship match a year ago.
“He’ll have the same level of opposition,” Highlanders coach Jim Landes said. “He’s a little bigger and stronger. He hits the ball harder than he did. He has always been talented. He’s got a beautiful game all around. He hits great groundstrokes, volleys.”
At No. 2 is Nate Welch.
“He doesn’t play that much in the off seasons,” Landes said. “So he’ll get better and better because he always starts off a little rusty.”
Freshman Ari Moskovitz is stepping into the third spot in singles.
“He’s going to be good for the next few years,” Landes said. “He’s got a nice game, he’s got a powerful serve. He can rally and do it all. He has some learning to do.”
The No. 4 is sophomore Emilio Misra. Landes said he’d like to see Misra have more confidence in his serve, among other things.
The top doubles team is sophomores Joey Assalian and Ben Davis. Landes said Assalian has improved a lot in the last year while Davis is coming over from the soccer team and will improve as the season gets rolling.
Juniors Hunter Gasteau and Maximo Miller have settled in as the No. 2 doubles team.
“They’re both much better relatively in doubles than they are in singles,” Landes said. “They have good instincts at the net and are aggressive up there.”
A pair of freshman make up the No. 3 team: August Collins and Henry Van Den Bos. They are learning the nuances of doubles play, according to Landes.
Four sophomores will be in the mix as well: Carter Brookfield, Raphael Centeno, Ethan Hammond and Adam Quibelan. Freshman Travers Kemp suffered a broken clavicle and will miss some time.
“We’re not great,” Landes said. “But we’re not terrible either. I don’t expect to win any big titles. I hope we have at least a winning team in the league.”
Landes said the goals this season are improvement and making the NCS playoffs. The Highlanders have been a consistent presence in the latter.
Landes said there are multiple eighth graders in the pipeline that should boost the program next year.