SCHSL Tennis Championships 2026
A.C. Flora captures the Class AAAA boys state championship title at the Cayce Tennis Center.
By WORTHY EVANS
CAYCE – Eight boys tennis teams contended for four state championships Saturday morning and afternoon at the Cayce Tennis Center. Spartanburg (5A Division 1), Myrtle Beach (5A Division 2), A.C. Flora (4A), and Oceanside Collegiate (3A) emerged as state champions.
5AD1
Spartanburg defeats Wando 4-3 in tiebreak
Spartanburg’s boys tennis team took on Wando’s serious effort to finally break through with a state championship the Cayce Tennis Center Saturday, but the Vikings’ top three players all chalked up victories.
With the match tied 3-3, two of those top three players, No.1 senior Hudson Chung and No.3 senior Thomas Cheek, teamed up in No.1 doubles to beat Wando’s eighth-grader No. 1 player Jacob Morillo and senior Vijay Pandey 6-2, 6-1 in the tiebreak to clinch a 4-3 victory over the Warriors and claim the 5A Division 1 state championship.
We really wanted to focus on our top three, getting those three their wins, and that would give us half the match,” first-year Spartanburg coach Steve Larkin said. “Being able to put our No.3, Thomas, our doubles specialist, with our No.1, Hudson, who’s amazing with his serve, Those two combined it’s hard to beat that.”
The Vikings got wins among their top three players. Chung defeated eighth-grader Morillo 6-4, 6-2, senior No. 2 Wade Neely defeated freshman Diego Bustamante 6-3, 6-4, and Cheek beat junior Mateo Bustamante 6-2, 6-2.
Pandey and senior Nacho Oria picked up wins for Wando to send the match into No.2 doubles. Pandey beat eighth-grader Ramsey Neely 6-2, 6-0 at No.4 and Oria beat sophomore Sam Strickland 6-1, 6-2 at No.5.
Wando’s No.2 doubles team of freshman Blake Butler and senior Graham Anderson defeated juniors Garret Jones and Bailey Faris 6-0, 6-0 to tie the match 3-3 and send it to the No.1 doubles teams to determine the winner.
“We were hoping to get one victory in that one, two, and three, and we came close at No.2 with Diego, but it was just not meant to be,” Wando head coach Bob Lang said. “It was a tall order coming into the doubles but I’ve got to hand it to our guys, Vijay and Jacob, Jacob’s an eighth grader and Vijay is a senior and it was really their first time playing together, and they did pretty well.”
Wando returned to the state final after falling 4-2 to J.L. Mann last year. This year marked the eighth time the Warriors reached the state final. They have yet to win a state title.
“It’s tough,” Lang said. “We want to win one of these. This is my fifth year as a coach but my third year coming to this, reaching the final and not winning. We’re still hungry and still trying to get it to happen.
“I’ve got to give credit to Spartanburg, what a team,” Lang added. “It’s a really good team and their one-two-three are some of the top players in the state.”
Larkin heaped praise on Chung, Neely, and Cheek as well as the rest of the Vikings hitters.
“We have a lot of confidence in our top guys and we have some good leaders on the team,” he said. “I’m so proud of them.”
Those senior players move on, but Larkin said he is excited to work with the younger Vikings in getting ready for next season.
“They’re a very young group. They’ve got good skills, have a lot of potential and good hearts, and competitive spirits,” Larkin said. “There’s a lot of development that could be made, so I hope for a promising future.”
5AD2
Myrtle Beach tops Greenwood for second-straight championship
Myrtle Beach continued its lock on state championship matches with a 4-2 victory over Greenwood for its fourth state championship in the last five years and back-to-back 5A Division 2 crowns.
“These guys worked hard,” head coach Jeremy Howard said. “We had some obstacles at the beginning of the season, but we needed that, especially to be prepared for this part of the season.”
Myrtle Beach’s wins came at No.1, No.2, and No.4 singles and No.2 doubles.
Senior Jack Green beat senior DeWitt Smith 6-3, 6-2 in No.1 singles, Eighth-grader Wyatt Anderson beat senior Brooks Gantt 7-5, 6-4 in No.2 singles, and senior Foster Cahill beat Brady Lloyd 7-6, 6-2. The No.2 doubles team of Kenneth Gunter and Ian Magee defeated seniors Thomas Chandler and Fenway Mundy 6-4, 6-3.
Greenwood’s victories came at No.3 singles, where junior Neel Kumar defeated Caleb Cahill 4-6, 6-0, (11-9), and at No.5 singles, where junior Will McMillan defeated Jon Kelly 6-0, 6-0.
“We’d seen Greenwood earlier in the season at a tournament (The Seahawks won 4-2), and they were strong, so I knew this was coming,” Howard said. “(Today) they played their best and we lost some courts that I knew we should’ve won.”
Howard credited Wyatt’s victory over Gantt at No.2 singles as the championship-clinching match.
“It came down to an eighth-grader on the court too, and that’s a blessing to watch him do that.”
Greenwood started the season with two losses, to 2025 state runner-up Riverside and to Myrtle Beach. Since those defeats the Eagles won every other match on the schedule, including a 4-3 win in tiebreak to the Warriors that sent Greenwood to the state championship.
“We had a great season this year,” Eagles head coach Howard Green said. “We started out with two losses in a preseason tournament and then went on a great run and won about 19 matches in a row, which got us to this point right here. It was a great match today. Myrtle Beach deserved the credit, they played very well on all six courts, but it was a fantastic season for us.”
The Seahawks lose five seniors, including No.1 player Green, from this year’s team but look to continue reaching the state championship match.
“We lose him and five total seniors, but we’ll start getting younger,” Howard said. “Our No.2 (Anderson) returns and down the line we have one junior and a bunch of sophomores, and I have a crew of eighth graders on the team, so the future looks bright.”
4A
AC Flora beats Bishop England again to retain 4A title
A.C. Flora may have lost six seniors from last year’s state championship win, but that didn’t deter the Falcons from returning to the state final—or losing any game, for that matter.
The Falcons breezed past Bishop England 6-0 to repeat as 4A state champions and continued their 49-match winning streak that dates from May 1, 2024. The boys joined the A.C. Flora girls, who won their second state championship last fall, at the top of the 4A heap.
“You never discount BE or any of the schools on the coast,” said Falcons head coach Amy Martin, who has led the boys to five state championships and the girls team to two state titles. “Going into this state finals undefeated was a huge mark, an exclamation point to close it out with one more win. Did I expect a 6-0 sweep, no. Will I take it, absolutely.”
Three of A.C. Flora’s five wins in singles went down as shutouts. Silas Cecchini defeated Dante Nava 6-2, 7-6 at No. 1, Jude Smyth defeated Roland Wier 6-3, 6-4 at No.2, Vijay Sinha defeated Ben Burnette 6-0, 6-0 at No.3, Will Hewitt defeated Ryland Shaw 6-0, 6-0 at No.4, and Will Bryan defeated Kieran Sharpe 6-0, 6-0.
In No.2 doubles, Sam McCormick and Reid Denemark defeated Declan Finley and Andrew Hamilton 6-1, 6-1.
The path to victory for the Falcons may have seemed like a breeze Saturday, but Martin credited a challenging season that tempered her team and kept them fighting. A.C. Flora opened with the FTA Boys High School Tennis Tournament in Florence and beat 5A Division 2 champion Myrtle Beach and 2025 5A Division 2 runner-up Riverside, among others.
“When we finished up in Florence, we played really tough matches there,” Martin said. “Then in mid March we went to the upstate and played three more really tough matches (at Riverside, Daniel, and T.L. Hanna). I think something clicked that Sunday after that weekend that they just needed to keep it going.”
Bishop England reached the 4A state final for the second straight year, the second time the boys made a final since 2019.
“We had a very good season, we have a lot to be proud of,” Bishops head coach Kristin Arnold said. “The boys worked hard, we had a good schedule, good matches, we won the first serve tournament this summer and beat Wando who is playing in the state championship over there. We have a lot to be great to thankful for.”
“We knew we had a couple of juniors that we knew would step up and be senior leaders,” Martin said. “We were able to get an eighth grader (Cecchini ) to step in our no.1 position, which is always a tough spot as you saw today. Tennis is such a lonely sport and when you make it a team sport like we have in high school tennis, it’s so much more fun. They’re still smiling.”
The bonus of the boys and girls completing a 4A tennis sweep is not lost among Martin or the Falcon players.
“That’s super sweet,” Martin said. “The girls were supporting the boys here, and with the boys supporting the girls back in November, that speaks volumes for our tennis program that we are out there for each other.”
3A
Oceanside beats Clinton 6-0 to repeat as 3A champion
In a rematch from last year’s 4A state final, the result was the same. Oceanside Collegiate defeated Clinton 6-0 to claim its sixth straight state championship.
“Six in a row for boys, It’s unbelievable,” head coach Shawn Harris said. “These boys train year-round like other teams do. It’s a sport that is year-round, and they love doing high school tennis for matches, for camaraderie, and to win a state championship. It’s all due to them. We’re just trying to guide them the best we can.”
Senior No.1 player Luke Skillman beat Matthew King 6-1, No.2 senior Jackson Nichols beat Edwin Orr 6-2, 6-1, sophomore No.3 Ollie Pfarr defeated Jacob Kings 6-4, 6-2, junior No.4 Carter Heath defeated Jake Meyerholtz 6-0, 6-0, and junior No.5 Huck Reynolds defeated Cooper Stinson 6-0, 6-0. The No.2 doubles team of senior Will Britton and junior Derek Olsen defeated Ethan Wargo and Malakye Brewer 6-0, 6-0.
Oceanside loses three seniors in Skillman, Nichols, and Britton after this year, but Harris said he has a deep group of younger players who will compete for the top spots in the runup to next season.
“They’re good boys. The young ones will have to step up next year and we’ll see what we’ve got,” Harris said. “A lot of these kids play in tournaments year-round and the structure of the charter school does help, they have time for their sport and the education is great there of course, just like every other school.”
Clinton head coach
Clovis
Simmons said, as she did last year, that her 2A-class team did an amazing job of competing among 3A competition.
“We were soaking it up. We loved it,” Simmons said. “It was good competition and the boys played with a lot of heart and never gave up. That’s all you can ask. We lose three seniors, one two and three (King, Orr, and Kings) and we have a lot of shoes to fill. But that’s sports, it goes in cycles.”
