Siverado doubles up at Zone

Steve Cunningham

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 12:56 p.m.

The tennis teams at Silverado may have received a monumental break by being switched to the Sunrise Division this fall, but Mike Mundt and Bob Clements aren't apologizing.

Mundt, the coach of the Skyhawks' boys' team and Clements, the girls' coach, will happily take their squads to the zone tournaments next week, regardless of circumstances which precipitated their qualifications.

The girls considered themselves strong contenders to reach zone play; the boys, well, they are a bit of a surprise. Mundt told his unit as much before the season started and the boys responded.

"I put a challenge to my guys," Mundt said. "If you want to go (to zone) with (the girls), you're going to have to start working hard. We would have been happy with a 6-6 season at the start and we finished 8-4. It's been a pretty good season."

The Skyhawks clinched their spot Wednesday by knocking off Rancho, 14 1/2-8. Chris Johnson and LaTeef Durosinmi won three sets in doubles to propel Silverado.

Mundt also lauded the play this fall of Terry Raymond, Steve Fernandez and Santino DeWreed. The addition of Andrew Baird as assistant coach was also a big factor in Silverado's success.

"It was a combination of all those things," Mundt said. "We are playing much better. We feel like we've improved and we're anxious to see how we'll do against whoever we play the second time around."

The Silverado girls gained their first zone berth by routing Rancho, 21-1 1/2. Freshman Kim Cavan won three sets to move to 32-1 on the season.

"We've had winning seasons before, but our goal, all season long, was to go to zone," Clements said. "I actually thought we'd be a little close (in competitiveness) to Gorman and Green Valley, but we proved we can compete with 90 percent of the teams in the area."

Silverado has received good doubles play from the duos of Alex Barbarousis and Kristina Wood (26-5), and Laura Conners and Pam Henson (24-6). It took a few matches for Clements to get his lineup to his liking, but the Skyhawks responded when he did.

Now, both Silverado teams are ready to experience the postseason for the first time.

"We both have been having fun with it the last week," Clements said. "The kids have been walking around school with their heads up. And they've become closer now that they know both teams are at the same level."