Burbank Boys Tennis Beats Burroughs 14-4 With All-Freshman Singles

Burbank High’s boys tennis team handed crosstown rival Burroughs a 14-4 defeat Thursday, and the most notable detail about the Bulldogs’ lineup wasn’t the scoreline. All three singles positions were filled by freshmen.

The youth movement didn’t slow Burbank down. The Bulldogs improved to 2-1 overall while Burroughs dropped to 0-3, still searching for its first win of the season.

Freshman Apollo Harbaugh handled the entire singles slate without dropping a set. He beat Burroughs No. 1 Adi Kiran 6-3, then dispatched No. 2 Jaden Chapman 6-4, and closed out No. 3 Iulian Lundburg 6-0. Three sets played, three sets won, zero dropped.

Harbaugh kept his postgame assessment brief. “I think we all played pretty well,” he said.

Fellow freshmen Emil Lazaryev and Levon Kassouny each split their singles sets 1-2, both dropping their matchups against Kiran and Chapman 6-2 before winning their third sets. Lazaryev beat Lundburg 6-0, while Kassouny edged him 6-2. The two losses apiece were largely absorbed by Harbaugh’s sweep, leaving Burbank with five of nine possible singles sets.

The doubles lineup made up the difference and then some. Burbank swept all nine doubles sets, with none of the three Bulldog pairings dropping a single match.

Senior Harut Keklikyan and Rithun Gopalakrishnan anchored the No. 1 doubles spot, going 6-2 over the Burroughs top pair of Isaac Ayala and Nolan Jennings, then 6-0 over Nick Devite and Andre B. Francis, and 6-1 over Cody Baer and Diego Kitzi.

The No. 2 doubles team of Michael Fan and Quinlan Cramer was even more dominant on paper. They went 6-1 in all three matchups, against Ayala and Jennings, against Devite paired with Dominic Carlebach, and against Baer and Kitzi.

Burbank’s No. 3 team of Alec Safarian and Monte Gharibian handled their bracket as well, beating Ayala and Jennings 6-3, winning a tighter 7-6 (7-5) set over Devite and Carlebach, and closing out Baer and Kitzi 6-2.

Keklikyan, one of the upperclassmen steadying the roster around the freshman trio, acknowledged the team’s focus heading into the rivalry match. Burroughs had entered the day having already lost to Glendale, and the Bulldogs were aware of it.

“This win means a lot for us,” Keklikyan said. “We heard that they had lost to Glendale, but we also heard that four of their players were gone, so we definitely were not underestimating them.”

That kind of competitive discipline matters early in a season, especially for a team breaking in three new varsity singles players simultaneously. Freshmen stepping into singles roles at the high school level often face an adjustment period. Lazaryev and Kassouny absorbed some tough sets against Burroughs’ top two players, but neither was blown off the court, and both closed their final sets with clean wins. Harbaugh’s performance at the top of the singles order gave the team breathing room.

The doubles depth is what put the final score well out of reach. Burbank had experienced hands in all three doubles slots, and the nine-set sweep gave the team a cushion that made the singles splits irrelevant to the outcome.

At 2-1, the Bulldogs sit in a reasonable early-season position. The singles lineup will face stiffer tests as Pacific League play develops, and how quickly the three freshmen grow into their roles will shape how Burbank competes in the back half of the schedule. Thursday’s result against a struggling Burroughs squad offers encouragement but limited data.

Still, for a team opening a new chapter with three first-year players in the lineup, a 14-4 win over a crosstown rival counts as a strong early statement.