SUNRISE BOYS: Cougars breeze to eighth straight title

Coronado’s boys tennis team had won seven consecutive Sunrise Region championships entering Saturday’s match.

The Cougars didn’t take long to tack on another.

No. 2 singles player Sam Cohen picked up the first of 11 consecutive Coronado victories, and the Cougars breezed to an easy 15-3 win over Liberty in the Sunrise final at Darling Tennis Center.
Coronado (13-0) advances to the Division I state tournament, which begins Oct. 18 in Reno.

'We just came out focused,” said Coronado coach Luther Bohanan. 'We got up on them in the first set, and I thought the kids just started playing relaxed. They played the way they are capable of playing.”

The Cougars, who beat Liberty 12-6 and 15-3 on consecutive days to end the regular season, never let the Patriots (10-3) feel comfortable.

“They’re familiar with the Liberty kids, and they realized that we couldn’t take anything for granted,” Bohanan said. “We know that Liberty comes out to compete.”

Cohen and Aaron Egbert each registered a 6-0 win in singles, and Jack Vance and Jamie Vance tacked on a 6-0 win in doubles to give Coronado a quick 3-0 lead. Cassell King in singles, and the doubles teams of Ryland McDermott and Sam Grant, and Patrick Crockett and Michael Boyd each won to give the Cougars a 6-0 sweep in the first round.

And Coronado wasn’t done, rattling off five straight wins to start the second round before Dylan Ihmels finally got Liberty on the board in singles.

The Vances finished 3-0 in doubles to pace Coronado. King was 2-0, and Cohen went 2-1 in singles for the Cougars, who got 2-0 doubles efforts from the teams of McDermott and Grant, and Crockett and Boyd.

Ihmels was 2-1 in singles for Liberty.

“The kids who have been with this program understand the tradition at our school,” Bohanan said. “They know from day one that this is what it is all about. We want to do our best to get to the state tournament. That’s something that’s been ingrained in them.”