Menchville, Grafton boys senior tennis players win state singles championships

Peninsula and Bay Rivers District senior boys each grabbed a state singles title as the VHSL tennis championships concluded in Newport News and Lynchburg.

Menchville’s Matthew Onoff and Grafton’s Rainer Christiansen provided their own graduation presents with their play Saturday — Onoff’s is Sunday, and Christiansen’s was Saturday night.

Onoff won in Class 5 by registering a stunningly easy 6-0, 6-0 shutout of fellow senior Neil Vanga of Cox, who defeated him 6-2, 6-3 indoors during a Universal Tennis Rating event last fall. It won the first tennis crown for a Peninsula (or Newport News) player since Menchville’s Kip Layman won back-to-back Group AAA championships in 1991 and ’92.

The 2023 Class 5 champ, Douglas Freeman’s Dylan Chou, who dusted Onoff in a semifinal last year, was an overwhelming favorite to repeat until suffering an injury during the state team quarterfinals. VHSL rules didn’t allow for him to be replaced in the state bracket of four, giving Vanga a pass to the final and providing Onoff with belief he could take the championship at Huntington Park, where his father, Thomas, works.

“When I found out two days before that Dylan wasn’t coming, I actually had a chance,” Onoff said. “It was hotter today, and I liked the heat a lot more than (Vanga) did.”

Onoff charged to hit a deft backhand down-the-line winner to finish the first game, then retrieved numerous balls, successfully lobbing to turn the tide of points. Then Onoff thrived via aggression as Vanga seemed tentative and flat, never finding the form that won him the Region A title.

“I like just coming to the net and putting the ball away,” Onoff said, adding he was glad to have the rest of the day to relax. “At least I didn’t graduate today. I would have fallen asleep in my chair.”

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Class 3 boys

Christiansen completed a storybook 12th-grade season with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Christiansburg’s Lucas Beasley at Liberty University. Vastly improved this year as his school dropped from Class 4, Christiansen took his fourth consecutive region title and the Bay Rivers’ first state boys singles crown since Grafton’s Yakov Diskin won three in a row in Group AA from 2004-06.

Diskin often was coached by Christiansen’s father, Eric, who won AA doubles titles in 1997 and ’98 and soon will be Rainer’s coach with Christopher Newport. John Lee and Christiansen took their first doubles crown Friday.

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Class 2 boys

Richlands’ Jack Clem repeated as the singles champ with a 6-3, 6-3 victory at Liberty over freshman Christoph Schweitzer, who already had sparked Bruton to its first team title and the doubles championship with Max de Winter.

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Class 6 boys

Deep Run senior Zach Fleishman dethroned three-time singles champ Matthew Staton 7-5, 6-1, winning 11 of the last 12 games. Staton, a left-handed Air Force recruit from Colgan High in Northern Virginia, was ranked as the nation’s No. 1 12th-grader for some of this season by Tennis Recruiting Network.

But Fleishman, who won the doubles Friday with Grant Kroodsma, showed the skills that should serve him well next season on a James Madison team that wants to show its 2024 last-place Sun Belt finish was a fluke.

Leading 6-5, 40-30, he sizzled a backhand winner on the line to win the first set, shouted “yeah!” — a change from his usually reserved demeanor — and maintained that momentum through the second set. The result delighted Deep Run fans, including his father, Brian, a teaching pro and former national college women’s Coach of the Year for Wake Forest who grew up in Newport News and was watching in courtside bleachers.

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Class 4 girls

Triple-crown winner Lexi Rotaru of Broad Run overcame Tovia Carothers of E.C. Glass 3-6, 6-2, 1-0 (10-6) in a hard-hitting clash of freshmen at Huntington Park.

Rotaru had led the Spartans to the team crown and had taken the doubles title with her sister Izzy, last season’s Class 4 singles champ.Carothers had plenty of support from her mother, Andrea, a former state champ who grew up in Poquoson, as did many other members of her extended family courtside. But Rotaru emerged the victor in just enough rallies to prevail.

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Saturday’s VHSL tennis scoreboard

Boys singles finals

Class 6: Zach Fleishman (Deep Run) d. Matt Staton (Colgan) 7-5, 6-1.

Class 5: Matthew Onoff (Menchville) d. Neil Vanga (Cox) 6-0, 6-0.

Class 4: Drew Perez (Salem Spartans) d. Neel Pasunuri (Broad Run) 6-3, 6-0.

Class 3: Rainer Christiansen (Grafton) d. Lucas Beasley (Christiansburg) 6-4, 6-4.

Class 2: Jack Clem (Richlands) d. Christoph Schweitzer (Bruton) 6-3, 6-3.

Girls singles finals

Class 6: Marianna Pirmatova (Fairfax) d. Sofia Raval (Battlefield) 6-1, 6-0.

Class 5: Ana Maria Rincon (Patrick Henry of Roanoke) d. Maddie Tran (Riverside) 6-4, 6-3.

Class 4: Lexi Rotaru (Broad Run) d. Tovia Carothers (E.C. Glass) 3-6, 6-2, 1-0 (10-6).

Class 3: Blythe Sturman (Western Albemarle) d. Grayson Woodall (Abingdon) 6-1, 6-1.

Class 2: Parker White (Marion) d. Lydia Pratt (Radford) 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 (10-6).

Class 1: Sadie Packett (Rappahannock) d. Addy Bays (Twin Springs) 6-0, 6-0.