Prep Tennis: Oak Hills opens the CIF-SS Division 6 playoffs with a victory over Adelanto

Isaac Tovar didn’t pick up a racket or seriously start playing tennis until earlier this year.

Just four months later, Tovar led the Oak Hills boys tennis team to a 16-2 victory over Adelanto in the first round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 6 playoffs.

“Yeah, my first month playing I didn’t really take it seriously but then I started beating all the other kids that they put me against 6-0 and I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I might actually be good,'” Tovar said.

Tovar, now the No.1 singles player for the Bulldogs, continued his winning ways on Wednesday, sweeping his way with two bagels and a 6-1 score.

Even though he is so new to the sport, Tovar still has high expectations for himself.

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“A little part of me was like, ‘Wow, I really wish I got that,'” Tovar said about nearly getting the 18-0 sweep. “But it is what it is. As long as we all got the win, that is really what matters.”

Tovar is a former baseball player for the Bulldogs who came over to the tennis team to play for new head coach Nick Yglesias.

Yglesias is a well-known figure at Oak Hills for his many years coaching various sports for the school. In his first season as the head tennis coach, Yglesias led the Bulldogs to a perfect 15-0 regular-season record, along with the program’s first Mojave River League title since 2017.

Part of Yglesias’ strategy for the tennis team was to capitalize on Oak Hills’ rich athletic talent pool to build up the program. As a result, Tovar is not the only one on the team who previously played other sports for the Bulldogs.

“We just wanted to get whatever we got. We wanted to take these guys and turn them into tennis players,” Yglesias said. “Joey Adamiak, our assistant coach, and Bryan Yglesias, my son, helps out. They bring a lot of stuff to the table coaching-wise. It’s not just me, it’s those guys too. We got them ready to be athletes, then we turned them into tennis players.”

Continued dominance

Oak Hills dominated the regular season, with 14 of the team’s 15 wins being by four or more games. That dominance continued against Adelanto with the Bulldogs winning 100 sets and only losing 28.

“It went well, everyone stepped up today,” Yglesias said.

The Bulldogs’ No. 1 doubles team for the day, Herman Velasco and David Gonzalez, nearly matched Tovar’s efforts, winning 18 sets while only losing three. Like Tovar, both Velasco and Gonzalez play other sports for the Bulldogs as they are on the Oak Hills boys soccer team.

“David and Herman set the tone for us all the time with their energy and what they bring all the time to every match,” Yglesias said.

While they were the No. 1 doubles team in the match, the Bulldogs have benefitted from having three doubles teams who can all step up as the No. 1 team at any time, according to Yglesias. The other two doubles teams went 4-0 in their four games before Yglesias put in two new pairs of players for the final round of games.

Sebastian Amato also enjoyed an undefeated day, winning all three of his games 18-3.

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A potentially deep run on the horizon

Oak Hills has a target on its back as the No. 1 ranked team in the Division 6 playoffs. If the Bulldogs continue to play how they have been all season then a run to the championship match is certainly in play.

“I know that we are going to go all the way to the finals and have a good run,” Tovar said.

While the team knows what its full potential is, the Bulldogs are still taking it match-by-match in the playoffs. If Oak Hills is going to get to the championship match then it has to take care of the matches on the horizon first.

“Right now, we are just looking at Friday,” Yglesias said. “Either play Highland or Colton next, and then we will go from there. And then we will look at Monday, after Friday, if we can get that far.”

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Prep Tennis: Oak Hills opens the CIF-SS Division 6 playoffs with a victory over Adelanto