LINWOOD – The Mainland Mustang tennis team swept the Red Raiders Thursday, May 8, but it didn’t come easy.
Three of the matches went to three sets before Mainland Regional High School walked away with the match, improving its season record to 11-2.
One of those three-set matches came as the Mustang first doubles team exacted a measure of payback after losing to Ocean City in the finals of the Cape-Atlantic League tournament.
Mainland’s Laksh Patel and Liam Angelo were blown out in their first set last week, 6-1, by Raiders Gabe Meron and Brendan Hardy, but fought to a tie-breaker in the second set set, winning it 7-6 (7-4).
In the third-set tiebreaker, the Mustang duo was able to prevail, 12-10.
When Meron and Hardy beat Patel and Angelo in the CAL finals, that match also went to three sets.
“Our first doubles did very well,” Ocean City coach Tim Kelley said of the CAL tournament matchup. “They were able to take care of business versus Mainland’s number one after a good start to the first set and then a shaky finish to the first set. Like a lot of our matches and individual matches versus Mainland do, they went to three sets. …. Luckily for us this time, we came out on top.”
This was the second year in a row an Ocean City first doubles team won the CAL tournament. “Mainland always puts up good doubles teams. for this,” Kelley said. He called his first doubles “super invested.”
“It’s one of your typical doubles teams too, where you have one kid who has really good strokes, your normal tennis player, and the other kid’s just a beast at the net,” Kelley said. “So anytime we have Sardy at the net, we know we’re in good hands, and he puts away a lot of balls at the net. It’s your perfect mix. You like to have one guy who can take care of business from the baseline. The other guy can take care of business at the net. They put a lot of work in and it’s just shown itself so far.”
Kelley’s lineup has changed because Joey Goodman returned. He played second doubles on last year’s South Jersey Group III championship team.
He’s at second singles and bumped freshman Todd Windfelder to No. 3. The former No. 3, Jake Collo, is now at second doubles with JD Polcini.
“The lineup’s a little different. I think our second doubles definitely got stronger. The rest is to be determined. They’ve been working hard in practice. We just have to get match experience at the positions we’re at,” Kelley said.
Mainland coach Eileen Fortis acknowledged the strength of the Raider first doubles, calling them “very good, very aggressive, very confident. We played them tough. We weren’t playing our best tennis last week, but, you know, still, we were in there.
“They just played a little better than we did. But it was a good match. I’m proud of our guys. They did what they were supposed to do, were expected to do. You know, they gave it everything they had on that day. So we’re proud of them.”
Mustang first singles Saketh made it to the singles finals, but ran into Cedar Creek’s Miguel Manalang.
“He was up against the kid from Creek And he wasn’t playing his best either. You got to give it to Miguel,” Fortis said.
Overall, she said, four of five Mustang entrants in the tournament made it to the quarterfinals. Second singles Luigi Batioja also ending up facing Manalang.
Fortis said it was a good experience for her players.
She is generally pleased with how her team is playing right now.
“I think we started off really strongly, top to bottom. You know, it’s a long season. So there are ups and downs.”
One of those downs happened before the Ocean City match when the team lost 3-2 to St. Augustine Prep. She called that one of the team’s “down moments,” and they had a player out of the lineup with pneumonia and asked JV players to step up.
“Unfortunately, we came up a little short there. But overall, I think our season’s going pretty well,” Fortis said.
“I hope that we can continue to improve.” She expects to have her full lineup ready for sectionals that are approaching quickly.
“There’s many tough teams in Group III that we’ll be dealing with, but that’s part of the fun,” she said.
The Mustangs (12-2) are ranked No. 1 in Group III in the power point standings which determine playoff seeding. Ocean City (9-4) is No. 4.
In the Ocean City-Mainland match, the Mustang second doubles team of Chad Ross and Clark Vaccaro had to go three sets to beat Ocean City’s JD Polcini and Jake Collo, losing the first set 5-7 before rallying in the second 6-1. Ross and Vaccaro won the third-set tie-breaker 10-5.
Third singles also went three sets. Ocean City’s Todd Windfelder won the first set 6-3, then lost an ever-so-tight second set 6-7 (6-8) to Mainland’s Jacob Reynolds. Reynolds won the third-set tiebreaker 10-5.
Agava beat Ocean City’s Chase Bowman 6-1, 6-0 and Batioja knocked off Raider Joey Goodman 6-2, 6-4.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
