‘Right here, right now’ Lex, Ontario duos excel in the moment, earn All-Ohio tennis honors

WOOSTER — Ahora.

It’s a Spanish word, pronounced oh-rah, that loosely translated means “Right here, right now!”

Ontario siblings Pablo and Hector Sanchez Vidal said it many times to fire each other up on the tennis court the last three weeks after being thrown together as a doubles team for the high school postseason.

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They gladly would have shouted it in support of their Richland County brethren – Lexington’s Ethan Remy and Dylan Catanese – during Thursday’s quarterfinal round of the OHSAA state tournament, except that Pablo and Hector were engaged in a battle of their own on a nearby court at the new College of Wooster tennis facility.

By the end of the day, both tandems had earned Division II All-Ohio honors. Pablo and Hector went 1-1 to cap a historic season and make second team all-state, while Catanese and Remy locked up a berth on the first team by breaking through to the second day of the tournament as Final Four participants.

The two-time district champions beat University School’s Vishwum Kapadia and Rohit Talasila 6-3, 6-3 in the quarters to become Lex’s first second day players since Ryan Mecurio and Ross Drlik finished fourth in doubles in 2021.

But the win Catanese and Remy were happiest with came in the first round when they knocked off Dayton Oakwood’s Arick Baldwin and Noah Boyce 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.

The victory avenged a loss to Baldwin and Boyce in the first round of the 2023 tournament. In that one, Catanese and Remy saw leads of 5-3 in the first set and 2-1 in the third set disappear before eventually succumbing 7-6, 4-6, 6-3.

Catanese and Remy then watched Baldwin and Boyce make it all the way to the state championship match, knowing it could have just as easily been them.

“We were definitely confident (about winning the rematch); we definitely felt we could beat them,” Remy said. “I think this time we were more consistent from the baseline. There really wasn’t much volleying in the match. (Baldwin) had super-hard groundstrokes, so you really couldn’t poach off him.”

In all, Lex had five players in action Thursday. Cooper Remy, a district runner-up in singles, lost 6-0, 6-1 to fellow sophomore Adi Nayak of Cincinnati Seven Hills in the first round, while Karl Etzel and Owan Gongwer were also eliminated in that round, falling 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 to Bexley’s Sam Lessard and Oscar Ramsden.

In Friday’s 9 a.m. semis, Catanese and Remy were scheduled to meet Columbus Academy’s Lucas Xue and Rowan Lo. Their schools have qualified for the Final Four of the Ohio Tennis Coaches Association state team tournament Saturday, at the same venue, and, as you might expect, the players have a history with each other.

Remy and Xue split their two matches at No. 1 singles last year, with Remy avenging a loss in the regular season by rallying for a 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory in the semis of last year’s OTCA team tourney, helping Lex to a 3-2 win and eventual state runner-up finish.

Catanese helped account for one of Lex’s points in that victory by collaborating with Jake Chilcote to beat Lo and his partner 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

The challenge now is beating Xue and Lo when they’re paired together.

“We definitely played well in the first round (Thursday), but we didn’t play great in the second match,” Catanese said. “We need to be more fully energized. We were just too tired being in the heat all day.

“But, no, it’s a great feeling (getting to the second day). At least we got to do it this year.”

After the way last year’s match against Dayton Oakwood got away, Catanese admitted some doubt crept in when he and Remy dropped the second set Thursday.

“We definitely stepped it up in the third set,” he said. “We really wanted it and fully came out swinging.”

As for the Sanchez Vidal brothers, they weren’t satisfied with just being the first state qualifiers in the history of Ontario’s boys program. They went out and beat University School’s Cole Kirchick and Lucas Weidenbacher 7-5, 7-5 in the opening round.

And they were one set away from advancing to the second day. To put into perspective their 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 loss to Gabi Kalir and Ace Bloom of Pepper Pike Orange in the quarters, Kalir and Bloom were district champs of the formidable Northeast Ohio district and Kalir won a state title with a different partner last year.

“Hector’s one who is always trying to be positive. ‘We’ve got the next point.’ That’s his mindset every single point,” Ontario coach Cary Carcione said. “Pablo’s the thinker. He’s the one who thinks his way through it. That and Pablo’s aggressiveness makes them a great combination.”

Up 6-5, love-40, Pablo, a senior, and Hector, a sophomore, were triple game point from being taken to a first set tiebreaker in their opening match. Then in the second set they let a match point at 5-4 get away as their opponents pulled even at 5-all.

In both instances, they kept their composure when they easily could have crumbled. They came all the way back from love-40 to close out the first set. In the second, after squandering the match point, they broke serve at love and only lost one point in Hector’s ensuing service game to wrap up the match.

“We just knew from the beginning that we could not lose that match,” Pablo said. “We had in our mind that this was our moment.

“I was pretty nervous, but I kept thinking, we’re going to win this match, and that’s what we did.”

As second team All-Ohioans, Pablo and Hector get their pictures on Ontario’s Wall of Fame. That’s all the incentive they needed.

“We just needed to play our tennis and be confident,” Hector said. “We were nervous at the start, but once we started playing we got a lot better.”

Hector and Pablo made it to state as district runner-ups, thanks to their stunning win in the semis over Etzel and Gongwer. It was a rematch of the sectional semis, when Hector and Pablo managed to win only one game.

“That was huge (for our confidence),” Hector said. “They’re a lot better inside (rain forced their sectional match inside Lakewood Racquet Club) and I think we’re much better outside. That helped a lot, too.”

Pablo and Hector spent all season playing No. 1 and 2 singles, respectively, for Ontario. Come the postseason, Pablo was leery about playing doubles after he and Joseph Litao, last year’s No. 1 player for the Warriors, paired up and got beat in the first round of the 2023 district tourney.

Pablo knew Hector wanted to play doubles, so Pablo left it up to Siri. His question for her went like this:

“Hey, Siri, pick a number between 1 and 2.”

If she picked 1, he was playing doubles. If she didn’t …

“If she had said 2, I would have played singles … I’m not even kidding,” Pablo said. “She said 1, and I’m glad she did.”

Pablo and Hector, spent the last few years in Ontario as part of an exchange program in which their parents, Pablo and Cristina, were teachers at Mansfield’s Spanish Immersion School. They return home to Spain on June 19, with the boys able to say they were part of the best two-year stretch in the history of Ontario’s tennis program.

In addition to their unprecedented success at the state level, they were a big part of back-to-back Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference titles, including a 2023 season where Carcione’s Warriors didn’t lose a court in MOAC duals or the league tournament.

“They definitely talked about wanting their pictures on the wall,” Carcione said, “to leave their legacy.”

The younger Pablo, who needed his brother to interpret for him when he first started playing on the tennis team and talking to the media in 2022, is planning to attend college and thinking about teaching English for a career.

“They are excited (about going home) because it’s a mixture of feelings,” said their father. “They are excited about seeing family and friends. (But there’s also) new friends here. All the goals they were thinking about, they achieved them.

“This (experience) is forever, for their future and family. Now, in their minds, it’s opened everything. They know they can go wherever. They have contacts everywhere, and they are more comfortable about everything.”

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Lex, Ontario duos excel in the moment, earn All-Ohio tennis honors