Leonardtown senior has discovered a new racket

Leonardtown High School senior Jacob Farren has played soccer since he was only 5 years old and last fall he was part of the Raiders’ boys soccer team’s successful run to the 4A state championship.

This spring, however, Farren is on the cusp of earning another state crown while playing boys’ singles on the tennis court, although it was only recently that he discovered that sport is basically his secondary racket.

Farren had actually never played competitive tennis until his freshman year at Leonardtown and only opted to take up the sport at the behest of his parents, who even provided him with a racket virtually twice his age.

Farren actually reached the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference boys singles finals as a sophomore, losing to La Plata freshman King Herald Nacua, but unseated him as a junior and then successfully defended his SMAC title earlier this month at North Point by defeating Westlake’s David Yum.

“During the pandemic my mom wanted me to take up a sport,” Farren said. “So, she encouraged me to take up tennis and gave me my father’s old racket, which was like 30 years old. I started taking lessons with Jack Tran and I really fell in love with the sport. I just kept working hard on my game and then my sophomore year at Leonardtown I was much more competitive.”

In his first season on the court, Farren climbed through the SMAC boys’ singles tournament and reached the final, only to fall to Nacua. One year later, he lost to Nacua during the regular season but attained a hint of revenge by besting him in the final. Last month at North Point, Farren successfully defended his singles crown by besting Yum, who had edged Nacua in the semifinals.

“My first two seasons were almost identical to one another,” Farren said. “I lost to Herald in the regular season then faced him in the SMAC championships. That first year he beat me, but then last year I beat him in the finals and this year I beat David for the title.”

Farren then added another title to his resume when he captured the 4A South Region tournament crown to earn a berth in this weekend’s state tournament quarterfinals at Wilde Lake in Howard County.

In the 3A state quarterfinals, Great Mills’ Mark Hoffman will compete this weekend at Wilde Lake in boys singles, Jayden Davis and Tristan Moore will play boys doubles, Katrina Iskey and Mia Iskey will compete in girls doubles and Leslie Pope and Ethan Torgeson will contend for the mixed doubles title and enter the bracket as the second seed overall.

In the 2A state quarterfinals, La Plata junior King Herald Nacua will contend for the boys’ singles title, Warriors’ Isabella Hunt is in the girls’ singles bracket, the McDonough tandem of Noah Cusack and Chris Jozwik will compete in boys doubles and La Plata’s Lauren Kelly and Nathan Carter will contend for the mixed doubles crown, while Huntingtown’s Bella White and Lucy Staley will compete for the girls doubles title.

In the 1A state quarterfinals, Lackey’s Brandon Rollins will vie for the boys’ singles title, Patuxent’s Brian Platz and Daniel Seger will compete in the boys’ doubles bracket, Lackey’s Nicole Aguila and Casey Klinger will contend for girls doubles and Patuxent’s Olivia Mejia and Max Kenner will seek the mixed doubles title.