Strong competition and warm weather were a tough combination on Tuesday as the Palomares League tennis finals got under way at The Claremont Club.

Claremont lost only one match in the first round, which started at 11:30 a.m. However, by the time the second round began it was clear the Pack was in for a long afternoon.

“We had all good matches for the second round,” said Coach Kathy Settles.

Number-one seed senior Andrew Leahy had a relatively easy time retiring both Ayala’s Lance Tayag, 6-1, 6-1 and then Diamond Bar’s Garrett Masuda, 6-2, 6-0, to advance to the semi final match Thursday.

Claremont’s number-two singles player, Leyton Bohren, flew past Glendora’s Josh Kim in the first round, 6-0, 6-0, but then found some tougher competition from South Hills’ Kevin Tang. Bohren won the first set 6-4 and was ahead in the second set 4-2 when Tang was forced to retire due to cramps brought on by heat.

The heat and extreme cramps would also dash the hopes of another Claremonter, number-three seed Christina Settles. He pretty neatly put away Bonita’s Lium Lin, 6-2, 6-1. However in the second round, Settles had the unfortunate luck to draw the league’s top-ranked player, Diamond Bar’s Neil Tengbumroong.

Tengbumroong won the first set 6-3. However, Settles matched him closely in the second set at 6-5, staring down a potential tiebreaker. Settles started cramping early in the second set, but by the time the match was at the crucial point he was having a hard time walking. Forced to leave the court on two occasions to address the pain, he ultimately lost, 7-5, but showed a ton of grit by finishing the match.

Coach Settles, who is Christian’s mother, said, “He felt he had a real chance at winning the second set and did not want to quit, and anything can happen in a tiebreaker. But this was the first hot day and a lot of the boys had trouble.” She added,  “This is the perfect example of why we train hard in practice so we can come out here and be strong.”

While Settles was battling with Tengbumroong, Claremont’s number-one seed doubles team, Eric Davis and Harrison Bojalad were caught in a fight of their own against Diamond Bar’s Austin Chiang and Nick Wong.

Claremont took the first set with ease, 6-0, but stalled in the second and lost 3-6. What ensued was a never-ending tiebreaker where the advantage switched several times until the Pack eventually prevailed, 15-13, to the cheers of their teammates.

On Thursday the semi-final matches began at 1:00 p.m. with Leahy taking on Ayala’s Pritwick Jeeva while Bohren faced Tengbumroong. If they both win they will play each other in the finals and both would advance to CIF.

Davis and Bojalad played Bennett Williams and Matt Diamond of Bonita on Thursday in the semi final match.

Results from the league finals will be in our next edition.

TRACK?AND?FIELD

Claremont runners continued their dominance in the Palomares League in Tuesday’s prelims and Wednesday’s finals at Ayala High School.

Duy Tran Sampson won both the 100-meter and the 200-meter race in the finals, cementing his berth in the CIF tournament this weekend.

Owen Bishop and Ryan Renken were neck-and-neck in the 1600-meter finals with Bishop getting the victory by less than a tenth of a second. Renken, however, was the victor in the 3200-meter race. Claremont boys also took the 4×100 and the 4×400 relay races.

In field events, Max McGuire took second in the pole vault but cleared the same height, 13 feet, as the winner.

Annie Boos left the competition in the dust in the 1600-meter final, beating teammate Tess Rounds by over three and a half seconds and getting a fairly easy win in the 800-meter finals by almost a full second. The Pack took seven of the top eight spots in the 1600-meter final.

In girls’ field events, Lyling Irwin took first in the pole vault at nine feet, six inches. Abby Holt won the high jump at five feet, two inches.

SWIMMING

A number of swimmers made it to the top eight finals this week at Mt. SAC during the Palomares League prelims.

Katrina Strash, Samantha Duran and Sophie Jones did well. Strash took second in the 50-yard freestyle and got an automatic CIF time of 24.77, beating her meet record from last year. Duran took third in the 100-yard backstroke.

Ben Eagleton won his signature event, the 50-yard freestyle, at 22.32 and Toby Jackson took third in the 100-yard fly race.

Also, Claremont diver Kaylee Anna Jayaweera made an automatic CIF berth with a score of 320.40 during the meet.

—Steven Felschundneff

steven@claremont-courier.com