Rams tennis coach goes from hoops to nets as new PCHS spring season gets underway

April 10, 2024 at 10:56 p.m.

Christian Yupangui returns a ball in the Port Chester Rams’ tennis match against Mount Vernon away Tuesday (4/9). He was the team’s number one singles player last year and is destined to fill that role again this year. (Courtesy photo of Craig Holcomb)

As the tennis balls came across the nets in continuous volleys, Rams head coach Craig Holcomb watched his players hit their practice shots with varying degrees of pace and expertise as the new season was about to get underway—and thought back to another Port Chester team he had coached, the last Rams basketball team to make the semi-finals of the Section 1 playoffs at the County Center in White Plains.

That was around a decade ago with one of the all-time great Port Chester teams: Preseason McDonald's All America Anthony (Scooby) Ordonez, 7-footer Joel Neri, David (Poppy) Rones, the Norman twins (Lamonte and Laron) with Jury White, Daywon Kind and Chris Nichols coming off the bench.

Up at half, down at end

They went into halftime leading defending champion Spring Valley by six points before losing close to the team that went on to win the title.

A lot had happened before and has happened since for Holcomb, who had coached hoops at Iona College before coming to teach in the Port Chester School District.

Those remembered basketball events, good and bad, ranged from having a point guard arrested for burglary shortly before a game that cost the Rams the playoffs to calling up Shamel Jones, one of the greatest Ram players ever, to the varsity as an eighth-grader only to see him leave the next year to play for a North Carolina prep school powerhouse.

Holcomb stepped away from coaching Rams basketball because he wanted to spend more time with his family (and besides the game was stressing him out with events like a key player being declared academically ineligible just before a game that could have led to a playoff berth).

So he wasn't still coaching hoops in Port Chester when Jones came back to tear up the league as a surefire All-Section candidate until he tore up his leg going up for an errant pass in a meaningless game, underwent surgery, and was never the same.

That was one basketball heartache Holcomb was spared.

Different kind of net

But he couldn't resist the urge to come back to coaching, albeit as the mentor for a gentler, differently paced life sport like tennis.

And he was glad to be there out on the Port Chester High School tennis courts teaching a Rams team the ABCs of a lifetime, upwardly mobile sport in a blue-collar environment.

"Between the unseasonable early April cold, all the rain and an early spring break, we are a little behind where we wanted to be," Holcomb said before a practice earlier this week. "We have some returning guys and some newcomers, and we still have a lot of work to do, but the early results are encouraging."

For example, the returning Ram players include Christian Yupangui, who was the number one singles player last year and should fill that role again this year.

Other players coming back for their second year on the team include Emmanuel Coyt, Sean Heffernan, Manolo Rabanales and Andres Sanchez. Both Heffernan and Sanchez played singles last year, so the Rams are starting out with three returning singles players.

The team also has a strong nucleus of first year players in Lucas Cepeda, Christian Jadan, Leonardo Jimenez Velasquez, Anderson Molino, Tony Nievecela and Hector Sunan Lopez.

Cepeda and Jadan looked like they could develop into a strong doubles team during the early practices. And the other two spots are up for grabs.

Switch in time, place

"We are currently practicing and trying to come up with the best lineup we can put together," Holcomb said. "The guys have a great attitude and are working hard."

And nothing phases Holcomb, so when he learned the Rams’ opening match against Mount Vernon was switched from later this week to Tuesday (4/9) away, he shrugged it off as whatever happens happens, took the sked change in stride and was glad the Rams weren't playing the Knights in a different kind of net game like basketball, the sport where Mount Vernon ranks among the top hoops teams in the state.

But in tennis, the Rams played the Knights close before losing 3-2 in a match that came down to the wire with Yupangui and Sanchez losing the first two singles matches by scores of 10-8 and 10-6 respectively while Cepeda won at third singles. Heffernan and Coyt took their first doubles match 11-9 only for the Mount to pull away late during a tense contest that was played in 10 game pro sets.

But win or lose, the Rams will come out swinging for their next tennis home match which is scheduled for Apr. 25, a Thursday, at 4:30 p.m. against Poughkeepsie. Unless something happens. As has happened to Holcomb all too often. But no matter. Holcomb finds coaching Rams tennis much easier because it involves a lot less wear and tear than coaching basketball.