Raider's Christian Baker Named Boy's Tennis Player Of The Year In Tri-Valley League

D-S sophomore Christian Baker was recently named the Boy's Tennis Player of the Year of the Tri-Valley League. Baker, who stepped into the #1 Singles position this year after playing 2nd doubles for most of his Freshman season, was voted MVP by the league's coaches.

D-S coach Jim Baroody said, "I hoped that Christian would advance enough in the off-season so that he could play first singles this year, but I never expected him to do as well as he has done.  I was happy for him after he played his way through our early practices to earn the #1 position, but figured that he'd take his lumps once the league matches started.  His accomplishments have really set the tone for our team's success in the league this year."

Baker's overall record for the year is 13-2 (13-1 in the TVL).  His two losses came against senior John Zelman from Cape Cod Academy (the two-time reigning champion for the state's South Division 3) and junior Jay Latimer from Medfield.  

"The second Latimer match was about as close as you can get," said Baroody.  "Christian lost the first set in a tie breaker, won the second set 6-4 and then lost the third set in another tie breaker.  Jay is in his second season as a #1 and his third season as a singles player, so the fact that Christian beat him once and lost in such a close match the second time is a real testiment to how far he's come as a tennis player and a competitor."

Baker is D-S's second TVL MVP in the last three years.  In 2009, then junior Andy Dougherty won the award.  "Andy set such a high standard in his four years here (his four-year record was an incredible 71-5 overall and 57-2 in the TVL), and I'm really happy with how Christian and our other players have stepped up to the challenge of walking in his footsteps."

Three of Baker's teammates were also voted as TVL All-Stars by the league coaches. 2nd singles player Harry Stone, a junior, was voted as a singles All-Star and sophomores Nick Barbier and Alex Qian-Wang were selected as doubles All-Stars.

According to Baroody, "Harry is a third year member of the team who I like to think of as 'Mr. Consistency.'  He played third singles for us last year and has moved up a position to second this year.  He faces very good competition every match and has really stepped up to the challenge of competing against those players.  Nick and QW (as Qian-Wang is known to his teammates) have been outstanding as a doubles team all season, going undefeated in the league.  It has been a huge boost to our team to go into every match with the confidence that we've got those two going at first doubles."

Stefano Barbier (Nick's brother), Mike Shaner, Alex Adamczyk, Russ Daly, and Captain Sam Zuckernick round out the players who have seen significant time starting this year.

D-S finished the regular season 13-2 overall and 13-1 in the TVL.  They split with Medfield and ended up sharing the TVL title with them.  This is D-S' 6th straight TVL title.  Baroody is pleased, but is also looking forward to the post season and the next few years.

"The really cool thing is that we're so young as a team.  We've only got one senior (Captain Sam Zuckernik) playing this year and two juniors in the top seven (Stone and Shaner).  We have sophomores at first and third singles, and sophomores at first doubles, with a couple more sophomores and freshman pushing for starting positions, so we're looking good in that regard.  The challenge will be to meet our potential and really push the envelope to go deep into the state tournament in each of the next two or three seasons," Baroody said.