OCEAN CITY – There are battles atop the leaderboard in the American Conference in boys tennis among Middle Township, Ocean City and Mainland Regional High School.
No one of the three is unscathed.
Right now, Middle Township is tops with a 12-1 record, its only loss coming to Ocean City. The Panthers avenged that loss last week and have beaten Mainland Regional twice.
Mainland Regional, in turn, beat Ocean City the first time around and on Friday, Ocean City returned the favor, winning the rematch.
The Mustangs and Red Raiders had similar records coming into Friday’s match.
Ocean City has improved to 11-2 and the Mustangs are now 9-3. The Mustangs, Raiders and Panthers remain well ahead of their competition in the conference. In the division, Middle is 9-1, Ocean City 8-2 and Mainland 6-3.
The only other CAL team close is Cedar Creek, which is 11-4 in the National Conference.
When the Raiders beat Middle Township the first time around, they won 4-1. Only Middle’s first singles Michael Ratchford won, topping Ocean City’s Joey Goodman 6-1, 6-2.
Chase Bowman won at second singles when opponent Miles Stafford retired from the match. Todd Windfelder beat Darp Patel at third singles 6-4, 6-4. Both O.C. doubles teams won, Gabe Meron and Brendan Sardy, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2, at first doubles and, at second, JD Polcini and Wilson Stauffer over Dylan Jenkins and Michael Zuzulock 6-4, 6-4.
Last week, the final score was reversed, with Middle winning 4-1.
Ratchford won again at first, 6-2, 6-1, Stafford won at second singles, 7-5, 6-4, and Patel won at third, 6-2, 6-0.
Meron and Sardy picked up the only win at first doubles, 6-4, 6-1. At second doubles, Raiders Jake Collo and Polcini lost a war, 7-5, 6-7 (3-7), 10-8.
When the Mustangs beat Ocean City on April 10, first singles Luigi Batioja beat Goodman, third singles Owen Medland beat Windfelder and, at second doubles, Mustangs Jake Reynolds and Liam Blake topped Raiders Polcini and Stauffer.
Things were different Friday when the Raiders were on the top side of the 3-2 score.
Batioja beat Goodman at first singles, but the match went three sets, 6-2, 4-6, 10-6.
At second singles, Bowman won 6-1, 6-0 over Patel. At third singles, Medland beat Windfelder 6-0, 6-2.
Both Raider doubles teams won to clinch the match; the matches were close.
At first doubles, Meron and Sardy topped Ben Kahn and Vikram Bansal 6-4, 7-5, and at second, it went three sets before Collo and Polcini topped Jacob Reynolds and Liam Blake 6-4, 4-6, 10-7.
Ocean City coach Tim Kelley and Mainland coach Chris Connolly note every time the two rivals battle, it’s practically guaranteed to be a close match.
The CAL tennis tournament is this week at Vineland High School.
In South Jersey Group III, Ocean City is No. 1 in Power Points with 16.398 points and Mainland is second with 15.682. The rest are well behind. Highland is No. 3 at 11.774, Deptford No. 4 at 11.099 and Lacey No. 5 at 11.065.
If these Power Points hold up, Ocean City and Mainland will end up on either side of the sectional bracket and if both teams win their preliminaries, could meet in the South Jersey finals.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff