There were no surprises at this year’s Moore League boys’ singles tennis finals at Lakewood High School. The top four seeds made the semifinals and finished in seed order, with Millikan sophomore Andy Nguyen (pictured, right) claiming the first boys’ singles title of his career.
Adding to the predictability of the results is the fact that Nguyen is the fourth sibling in his family to win a Moore League singles title for Millikan. Sisters Mimi and Cindy and brother Danny helped pave the way, but now it’s Andy’s turn to hold the title. His journey to the top of the Moore League had to wait due to last season’s cancelation. Nguyen was undefeated as a freshman when the pandemic hit, denying him the chance to compete for a league title. A year later, he capitalized on his opportunity.
“I’m really excited because last year we were expecting big things with our team and then just having Coronavirus end it, that really sucked,” said Nguyen. “Now we got a second chance and we’re really living up to it right now, we’re undefeated on the season. And I think I played well throughout the whole league and I’m excited that I won.”
Nguyen defeated teammate Nolan Alvarez 6-0, 6-2 in the final--a fitting culmination after the season the Rams have had. Millikan went unbeaten in Moore League play in 2021, claiming the program’s first league title in boys’ tennis since 1997. It’s been a stressful week for head coach Torie Frapwell (who is coaching both the boys’ and girls’ teams simultaneously) who coached her team to a historic league title last week, then watched two of her players play head-to-head for the league singles title.
“I was pretty much a nervous wreck last week,” admitted Frapwell. “I've been doing this for 15 years and I’d never had a team win a title. And knowing how close it was, I had to calm my nerves before I saw the boys on Thursday. The team that I had last year, we really thought we were in it and we were gonna actually pull it off then. And there were a lot of seniors, so we felt like we'd really missed an opportunity last year.”
But with the addition of Alvarez coming in as a ninth grader, that helped keep the Rams in position to win the team title.
In the singles final, Nguyen got his biggest challenge of the tournament from Alvarez, but was still firmly in control of the match with his terrific forehand. Nguyen only lost three games in the entire tournament, but two of them came in the second set against Alvarez as he grew into the match.
“Playing a teammate is hard because we're also close,” Nguyen admitted after the match. “Playing a teammate, it kind of messes with your mind a little bit because you'd rather play an opponent you don't really know that well. But it was still a good match, I still respected him, and I played my hardest to respect his game.”
In the third place match, Poly’s Kimson Phy came back to defeat teammate Franco Fratovich 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 10-2.
The playoff pairings for CIF-SS boys’ tennis will be released next Monday, May 17 with the first round starting that Thursday.
Millikan Girls’ Tennis Wins Wild Card Match
The Millikan girls’ tennis team won its wild card matchup against Oxnard on Tuesday, claiming a 15-3 victory. The Rams were a perfect 9-0 in singles play and only dropped two games combined across those nine singles matches. The trio of Maya Alvarez, Elena DaRosa and Riley Duenas were dominant in their wins to help lead the Rams into a first round matchup at No. 2 seed Fountain Valley on Wednesday.
