In singles, both #1 seed Eidan Mercado of MH and #2 seed Aadi Rajan of MH were able to get
through their first 3 matches easily to set up an all MH final for the third year in a row. Rajan started fast winning the first 3 games but Mercado steadied his game and ripped off 8 straight games to win the first set 6-3 and take a 2-0 lead in the second set. Rajan fought back and won 2 of the next 3 games to get as close as 2-3 but Mercado was just too tough today closing the match with the last 3 games to win 6-3, 6-2 to win his second consecutive league singles title.
In the doubles tournament, as the league team champion, MH was able to send 3 doubles teams. The top seed of the tournament was Senior Pranav Sundar and Junior Captain Daniel Zhang. The 3rd seed of the tournament was Junior Zuhair Mughal and Sophomore Dhruv Jena. MH also sent the team of Sophomores Parthiv Algubelli and Andy Su Jr. All 3 teams won easily in the first round to advance to the quarterfinals. Algubelli and Su then met the #2 seed from Beyer (Padilla and Moore) and played well early, splitting the first 4 games, but was eventually over-powered in the end and lost 2-6, 0-6. #3 seed Mughal and Jena won another easy match and advanced to the semifinals to meet the #2 seed. Beyer took the first set 6-1 but MH battled back and kept the second set close but eventually lost 4-6. The #1 seed Zhang and Sundar had an easy time in the quarterfinals but had to really dig deep to get past the #4 seed from Los Banos (Specht and Jurgen) 6-4, 6-1.
This set up a battle of the #1 seed from MH and #2 seed from Beyer for the league championship. In fact, this is the first time since joining the WAC that MH did not have both teams in the doubles finals. The MH team took control early and won the first set 6-2 and reached 4-1 in the second set when the Beyer team fought back and tightened the score to 4-3. Two solid games by Zhang and Sundar, however, was enough to finish the match at 6-2, 6-3 and win MH its 4th consecutive league doubles title and the first for both Zhang and Sundar.
Next up for the Mustangs? The first round of CIF sectional playoffs on Monday May 8 where MH is home as the second seed in division 2.