Oak Hills' unbeaten season ends in the CIF-SS Div. 6 championship match against New Roads

The Oak Hills boys tennis team was in rough shape for the last three years.

After winning a Mojave River League title in 2017 and going 20-6 in 2019, the team has had a losing record the past three seasons without a playoff appearance.

Before this season started, Nick Yglesias was brought in as the new head coach. Yglesias has been with Oak Hills since it was built and has coached various sports around the school.

The first thing he did was utilize Oak Hills’ training facilities to turn the players into athletes first.

“What I instilled is that these guys coming out every day at practice, not wearing jeans. You’re coming out as an athlete,” Yglesias said. “That was the goal, turn them into athletes first, and then we’ll turn them into tennis players.”

That focus on athletics first showed in the team's top singles player and top doubles team. Isaac Tovar, the team’s No.1 singles player, was a baseball player before playing tennis for the first time this year. Herman Velasco and David Gonzalez, the No.1 doubles team, are soccer players in the winter.

With a new head coach and a new focus on training and practice, Oak Hills turned around the previous shortcomings in a massive way. With the MRL title in hand and a perfect 19-0 record, the Bulldogs found themselves at the Claremont Club in the CIF-Southern Section Division 6 finals against New Roads on Friday afternoon.

But Oak Hills’ miracle run came to an end as it was beaten by New Roads 11-7 in the finals.

“It was a good effort by our guys. A good 19 games and we knew it had to end sometime, either today or next year,” Yglesias said.

The streak

The season started strong for the Bulldogs, winning their first six games by seven or more points.

The real test came when Oak Hills traveled north to Ridgecrest to face Burroughs, the reigning MRL champions.

It was their closest game yet, but the Bulldogs prevailed to beat Burroughs 11-7.

“After we played Burroughs the first time that’s when we thought, hey we got something here. We can make a run doing something cause they were league champs last year,” Yglesias said.

The wins kept coming for the Bulldogs, winning the rest of their MRL matches to become champions for the first time since 2017.

This earned them the No. 1 seed in the Division 6 bracket. After taking so many years to get back to this point, the Bulldogs did not let the opportunity go to waste.

Adelanto, Colton, Orange Vista and Northview all fell to Oak Hills in the playoff. The Bulldogs won all of those playoff games by at least six points.

A disappointing end

The struggles started quickly for Oak Hills on Friday afternoon.

Tovar, Sebastian Amato and Daniel Behrends all dropped their opening singles matches.

The singles side for Oak Hills continued to labor throughout the day with Tovar picking up the only win with a 6-2 score against New Roads No. 3 player Milo Rose.

To pick up the slack, Yglesias looked to the doubles team which has been the strongest this season.

“Doubles have been the strong point all year. We rely on them to sweep and then pick up a couple of wins on the singles side,” Yglesias said.

Velasco and Gonzalez did just that by winning all three of their matches by a combined score of 18-3.

Josue Soto and Kanoah Pascua picked up one win, and Angel Guzman and Hayden Christensen won two of their matches.

But it was not enough.

Just as the final two doubles matches were getting underway, New Roads picked up a 10th point to seal the championship.

For a school like Oak Hills where winning seems to be a given and a program like the boys tennis team which saw consecutive losing seasons, Yglesias is proud to see this team rise to the ranks in one year as one of the best in the High Desert.

“These kids got respect from the other kids on campus, the administration on campus, the teachers, everybody,” Yglesias said. “They turned a corner and feel better about themselves too.”

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Oak Hills' unbeaten season ends in the CIF-SS Div. 6 title match