Irvine Valley's athletes of the week for Apr. 29 are freshmen men's tennis players Nick Grove and Luciano Pardo.
The duo, which had already helped Irvine Valley to an Orange Empire Conference title and a No. 1 ranking in Southern California during the regular season, did even more last weekend.
Grove and Pardo defeated all of the competition in doubles at the 3C2A State Championship in Ojai.
Grove and Pardo reached the final with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Gavin Sonntag and Enrique Silveira in the semifinals on Saturday before taking down Adam Ridaoui and Lance Morgan, 7-5, 6-7, 7-5 in the championship match at Libbey Park on Sunday.
Grove and Pardo join the likes of Javier Callejo (state singles champion in 2016 and 2017), Bruno Figlia and Scott Paz (state doubles champions in 2016), Valentin Baize and Maxime Rumeau (state doubles champions in 2015) and Arthur Bellegy (state singles champion in 2022) and doubles champion with Kiichi Ishida also in 2022 as part of a special group of IVC men's tennis players to win titles at Ojai.
