The 2023 Alaska high school tennis season wrapped up on Saturday afternoon, and while a few new faces were crowned as state champions, one team finished on top in the final standings to win its fifth consecutive team title.
West High claimed its 11th state championship since the first sanctioned state tournament in 2007 and its fifth straight. (During the 2020 COVID-19 season, West also won the most individual titles, but team scores weren’t counted that year.)
“We’ve got great kids and work really hard at West,” head coach Bill Cotton said. “When it’s raining, we’re inside hitting it hard at the gym and practice six days a week.”
The Eagles were able to claim their overwhelming victory thanks in large part to a strong showing in the finals, where they were represented in four of the five divisions. Ultimately, five West players were crowned champions after the team swept the boys and girls doubles.
Both matches required an abbreviated extra match to decide the final victor after each of the West pairings fell in their initial finals match due to the double-elimination format of the tournament.
The boys doubles duel between Cyrus Clendaniel and Will Sedwick of West and twin brothers Jaken and Logan Reinheller of West Valley was the most entertaining and intense match of the finals, going down to the wire.
“That was one of the most amazing boys doubles matches that I’ve ever seen,” Cotton said. “All four of those boys played amazing. Will and Cyrus left any holes in their games out in that match and played great.”
This marked the second straight state title for Clendaniel — who also won boys doubles last year — but it was the first and final state tennis championship of Sedwick’s high school career after he placed second in mixed doubles in 2022.
“(The Reinhellers) were really good, and thankfully Cyrus can return serves and I didn’t break my racket,” Sedwick said.
The two have been friends since childhood and are glad and grateful that they could go out on top together as seniors.
“It’s like nothing else,” Sedwick said. “Rarely do you see someone make it all the way with one of their best friends.”
West won girls doubles for the fourth year in a row, but for the first time since that streak started, the winning duo didn’t include Eva Lief, who graduated in the spring. This time, it was the pairing of Ruth Green and Lavinia Li who bested Chelsea Ligsay and Milina Mazon of Juneau.
In the singles divisions, the reigning boys state champion successfully defended his title, and a first-year phenom claimed her first championship on the girls side.
Last year, when South’s Aaron Griffin won his first state title in a match against top-ranked Ulysses Escobar of Service, he was nearly pushed to the point of exhaustion on his way to winning a tightly contested match.
The two appeared to be on collision course to have it out in the finals for a second year in a row before West’s Jude Cebrian upset Escobar in the semifinal, preventing Escobar from advancing to the finals for what would’ve been the third year in a row.
“Jude played a smart game and Ulysses wasn’t ready to handle that, and it was fun to play Jude like that,” Griffin said.
Cebrian battled through a lingering wrist injury to prevail over the top seed but wasn’t able to finish his finals match with Griffin, conceding the victory with an injury withdraw.
“He did a wonderful job and has had such a tough time with his wrist the last month and a half,” Cotton said. “He was a really brave kid to go out there without being able to hit hard shots. He was steady, kept the ball deep, and that frustrated Ulysses in the semifinal, and Aaron Griffin handled it great.”
It wasn’t the way that South’s “Wadda Boy” expected to go out on top, but he’s happy that it happened all the same.
“It feels really great to win senior year,” Griffin said. “All the people out there gave it their all and mine won today. It was unfortunate that (Jude) wasn’t at full strength, but stuff happens.”
He earned the nickname, which was printed on the back of his shirt in gold letters, after several people yelled at him to get one of his teammates some water during a regular season match.
“One of the parents yelled ‘Wadda Boy!,’ and it stuck from there,” Griffin said.
It was meant as an homage to Adam Sandler’s character in the 1998 movie “The Waterboy,” and Griffin said “it fits perfectly” because he loves to “open up a can of whoop ass.”
The typically boisterous Griffin was much more reserved but dominant in his finals match, before Cebrian conceded due to his injury.
“I think that he has grown a lot mentally in the last year and he’s able to control his game through staying calm,” South head tennis coach Christine Hemry said of Griffin. “The problems that he has now is not because he can’t execute the shots or have the skills to do it. It’s just a mental hurdle, and this weekend, he pushed over and focused on himself on the court and not other people.”
On the girls singles side, West freshman sensation Lana Cebrian completed her undefeated season with a commanding, hard-earned victory over Eagle River senior Skylar McCasland.
“It was a tough year but I’m glad I played Skylar in the end,” Cebrian said. “She’s very stable, very consistent, very on her toes, she gets every ball even if its behind her which I love playing.”
After the match, Lana Cebrian was elated to have accomplished the goal that she’d set for herself at the beginning of the season. However, she was also saddened that it represented the final time she and McCasland, who will graduate in the spring, would get to play each other in a sanctioned match.
“It was a lot of pressure, but I’m glad it turned out that way,” she said.
Cotton is proud of how far Cebrian has come in just her first year competing at the high school level, and he said he looks forward to being able to hopefully coach her to more titles in the future.
“She is the best girls tennis player we’ve seen since Christine Hemry, who is the South coach now and won the state title four times,” he said. “I don’t know if Lana can do that, but at least she won it as a freshman and is such a pleasure to coach.”
ASAA State Championships
Boys singles
Semifinals
Aaron Griffin, South, def, Ulysses Escobar, Service, 6-1, 5-7, 10-6
Jude Cebrian, West, def. Ulysses Escobar, Service, 5-3, 4-1
Finals
Griffin def. Cebrian, 6-1, withdrawal injury
Girls singles
Semifinals
Lana Cebrian, West, def. Skylar McCasland, Eagle River, 7-5, 6-1
Skylar McCasland, Eagle River, def. Marianna Zelazek, Bartlett, 5-4, 5-4
Finals
Cebrian def. McCasland, 6-1, 6-0
Boys doubles
Semifinals
Cyrus Clendaniel/Will Sedwick, West, def. Jaken and Logan Reinheller, West Valley, 6-2, 4-6, 10-4
Jaken and Logan Reinheller, West Valley, def. Elliot Welch/Brendan West, Juneau, 4-1, 5-4
Finals
Clendaniel/Sedwick def. Reinhellers, 1st - 6-4, 7-6/ 2nd - 4-1, 1-4, 11-9
Girls doubles
Semifinals
Ruth Green/Lavinia Li, West, def. Fiona Beardsley/Elodie Dahle, Lathrop, 6-1, 6-1
Chelsea Ligsay/Milina Mazon, Juneau, def. Fiona Beardsley/Elodie Dahle, Lathrop, 4-2, 4-0
Finals
Green/Li def. Ligsay/Mazon, 1st- 7-5, 2-6, 10-8 - JNU/ 2nd -5-4, 4-2- West
Mixed Doubles
Semifinals
Elizabeth Djajalie/Lucas Mattson, Juneau, def. Grace White/Theodore Kenna, Monroe, 6-4, 6-3
Sophia Bechtoldt/Noah Stahl, Lathrop, def. Grace White/Theodore Kenna, Monroe, 1-4, 4-1, 11-9 Match Tiebreaker
Finals
Djajalie/Mattson def. Bechtoldt/Stahl, 6-2, 6-2