Editor’s note: Mainland’s tennis team fell to Shawnee 4-1 in Tuesday afternoon’s South Jersey final.
OCEAN CITY – The Mustang tennis team earned its way into another South Jersey Group III final after narrowly beating Ocean City High School’s team for the second time this season May 28.
Playing for the third time this spring, the Mainland Regional High School boys topped the Red Raiders 3-2 in the South Jersey semifinals. They were playing No. 1 seed Shawnee for the South Jersey title Tuesday after the Sentinel sports section went to press.
The Mustangs (17-5) beat the Red Raiders (14-5) 3-2 when the teams first met April 10, but on April 24 in the rematch, Ocean City came out on top by the same score.
In the sectional semifinals, Mainland first singles Luigi Batioja beat Joey Goodman 6-1, 7-5 and third singles Owen Medland topped Raider Todd Windfelder 6-2, 6-2 for two of the points.
Ocean City second singles Chase Bowman beat Mainland counterpart Laksh Patel 6-2, 6-3. Bowman’s second doubles teammates, Jake Collo and JD Polcini, also won, 6-2, 6-4 over Liam Blake and Jacob Reynolds.
In a pivotal match, Mainland’s first doubles, Vikram Bansal and Ben Kahn, knocked off Ocean City’s Gabe Meron and Brendan Sardy 6-3, 7-5. Meron and Sardy recently won the Cape-Atlantic League doubles title and had beaten Bansal and Kahn twice in the regular season.
Ocean City was the No. 2 seed in the sectional and Mainland was No. 3. The Red Raiders beat Cherry Hill West in the first round and Deptford in the second round, both by 5-0 scores, to make it to the semifinals. Mainland beat Toms River South in the opener and Highland in the quarterfinals, also by 5-0 scores.
Shawnee (11-8), with a bye in the first round, beat Winslow 5-0 in the second round and Cumberland 4-1 in the semifinals.
Mainland is the defending South Jersey champion, having topped Shawnee 3-2 in 2025. Ocean City beat Shawnee 3-2 in the 2024 South Jersey final.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
