The potential of the Regis Jesuit boys tennis team throughout the season came through on the final day of the Class 5A individual state tournament.
All seven of the Raiders’ lines made it all the way to the final session of three-day tournament Saturday and all walked away with hardware as top-three placers, even if not exactly what they desired.
Sophomore Alec Rodriguez-Fields claimed the 5A No. 1 singles state championship and the all-senior No. 4 doubles team of Spencer Buege and Aiden Prananta also triumphed on a day in which coach Laura Jones’ Regis Jesuit team went 2-4 in title matches.
“I’m just really proud of this moment, I’m proud of myself and happy with what I did,” Rodriguez-Fields said after his 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over Pine Creek freshman phenom Braylon Desquitado. “I was slightly nervous, but I was motivated because I lost in the final last year. That helped keep motivated throughout the match.”
Indeed, Rodriguez-Fields came up short of winning a state title last season when he played in the No. 2 singles spot and fell to Valor Christian’s Jace Nakamura in the final. He avenged that loss to Nakamura with a semifinal victory (6-1, 7-5) as both moved up into the No. 1 spot this season and then he faced the undefeated Desquitado in the final.
Rodriguez-Fields dropped the opening set, but worked his way back into the match. He managed to survive a serving onslaught by Desquitado, who had several racquets break during the match and had to have a medical time out in the third set.
Up 4-1 in the final set, Rodriguez-Fields saw Desquitado win three straight games, but he held serve to take the lead and then got a break to win the match.
“He was just bombing his serves in the third set, so I got a little nervous,” Rodriguez-Fields said. “I just tried to move my feet more, cheer a little louder when I won a point to maybe get in his head a little bit. I just had to do what I could.”
All the other Regis Jesuit finals came in head-to-head matchups with Cherry Creek, which went in the Bruins’ favor by a 4-1 count. The teams will reprise their matchup Oct. 22 in 5A team state championship match on the same courts.
Buege and Prananta were the lone victors for the Raiders, as they took down Cherry Creek’s Mitch Kelly and Truman Wooden 7-6, 6-4 to win a title in their first and only career appearances at the state tournament.
“It was pretty amazing that we did this in our first year,” Buege said. “We worked hard all season and we had a great regular season that carried over into state.”
Buege and Prananta lost only one match during the regular season — to the same Bruins’ duo at the Cherry Creek Invitational Sept. 14 — and they made it through four state matches without losing a single set.
They averted a set loss with a close win in a first set tiebreak, then went on to finish the match, despite falling down 0-3 in the second set.
“We won the tiebreak in the first set, which was a really big moment,” Prananta said. “We kindof took our foot off gas pedal at the beginning of the second set, but then we got locked in.”
Freshman twins Blake and Sebastian Wright finished the season with matching second-place finishes at Nos. 2 and 3 singles, respectively, for Regis Jesuit.
Blake Wright finished the season with just one loss, which came in the final, as Cherry Creek’s Jack Loehr topped him 6-4, 6-3. It was a similar match (though with a different final outcome) to when Wright won 6-4, 6-4 when they played in the finals of the Cherry Creek Invitational.
Sebastian Wright finished with only two losses and both came to the Bruins’ Aiden Washer, who he faced for the third time on the season. Washer prevailed 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 in a see-saw match to take a 2-1 lead going into the team state rematch.
The Regis Jesuit No. 3 doubles team of senior Carl Siegel and sophomore Edward Samuelson took the first step to victory by claiming the first set from Cherry Creek’s Sam Migliaccio and Devan Shah, only to see the Bruins rally for a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.
Senior KC Eckenhausen and junior Adam Rydel saw a lead in an opening set tiebreak get away to Cherry Creek’s Wills Possehl and Tyson Hardy, then forced a third set before the Bruins prevailed 7-6, 6-3, 6-1.
The Raiders’ No. 1 doubles team of junior Clay Dickey and sophomore Vlad Sukhovetskyy bounced back from a semifinal loss to Cherry Creek (in which they dropped two tiebreaks) and cruised to third place with a emphatic 6-2, 6-1 win over Fairview’s Ian Schwartz and Sam Rich.
To finish off the season, Regis Jesuit and Cherry Creek will meet in the 5A team final Oct. 22 in a rematch of last season, when the Bruins prevailed 4-1. Cherry Creek has won both titles since the team tournament was added starting in 2022.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
