Rick Wanta, although not the first tennis coach at CdS, has been coaching tennis at Corona for 20 years and it has been 19 years since one of his teams has won the Kiwanis High School Invitational Tournament. It was a big win for the Corona team who took home the first place trophy, February 23, over 32 high school teams competing from all over the Phoenix area.

Junior Garret Dunn placed third in singles while senior doubles partners Raghu Menon and Tanner Hatch placed second in the Gold bracket. Winning first in the Silver Doubles bracket were partners junior Ben Duong and sophomore Kyle Ogren.

It should not have been such a big surprise because CdS boys tennis started the season strong winning five out of their first six regular team matches outscoring their opponents 41 points to 14. The team’s only loss came from the racket heads of Brophy on Feb. 19, where CdS actually took 3 of the available 9 match points from the notoriously hard-hitting Broncos.

Wanta attributes the team’s strong start to the return of 10 players, with four of them last season’s varsity starters. He says he also has high expectations for two of his younger team members, sophomores Daniel Larsson and Ryan Skuse.

 “We have a strong team returning,” said Wanta, “and can hopefully win the Central Region.”

Desert Vista and Mountain Pointe usually have competitive boys tennis teams but Wanta expects the 5A state competition to also include Brophy, always a contender, Salpointe, Red Mountain and, of course, Corona del Sol.

Corona boys tennis matches usually start at 4 p.m. with six regular season matches still remaining after spring break. Match schedules and results for both the JV and Varsity teams can be found on CdS’s athletic website at http://www.aztecathletics.com/ .