On Thursday, Manteca (9-1), second place in the VOL, traveled west to take on Mountain House (10-0), first place in the VOL, in a battle of league elites. While the Lady Mustangs of Mountain House came into the match with a 113 match league winning streak dating back to 2018, the Lady Buffaloes of Manteca, with defending sectional singles champion Hailie Kim and super freshman Reina Ngo, certainly has the talent to challenge Mountain House. It was a picture perfect day in Mountain House for tennis. Even the Altamont winds decided to take a break today. The matches started soon after the introductions.
The first point of the match went to Mountain House when senior Varna Maganti took down Naomi Navarro at #5 singles by a score of 6-0, 6-0. The next point also went to Mountain House when senior co-captain Ishita Ahelleya took care of business at #3 singles and defeated Saihaj Ghuman 6-1, 6-1. Manteca won the next point as Kim took down junior co-captain Vivian Zhang at #1 singles by the score of 6-1, 6-1.
The match of the day was at number doubles. The Mountain House pair of senior Gauri Krishna and sophomore Dhruvika Samala won the first set 6-1 but the Manteca pair of seniors Paisley Coenenberg and Alyson Alvarado fought back and took an early 4-1 lead in the second set. In the ensuing game, Krishna stepped to hit a volley but collapsed on the court with a serious knee injury. After a brief injury break, Krishna chose to continue despite the injury to finish the match. Manteca was able to win the second set 6-3 and force the match to a 3rd set match tie-breaker. In the tie-breaker, Manteca took an early 4-2 lead after Mountain House made multiple errors. At this point, Krishna and Samala regrouped and wrestled the momentum away from Coenenberg and Alvarado and won 7 of the next 8 points to take a commanding 9-5 lead. A couple of big shots by Coenenberg and Alvarado closed the gap but Mountain House sealed the victory by a score of 10-7.
Mountain House won its 4th point at #4 singles when sophomore Diya Sundar beat Ekam Ghuman 6-2, 6-3. Next, super sophomore Alicia Rawat defeated one of the top players in the league, Reina Ngo, by a score of 6-3, 6-4 to give Mountain House the 5th point and the victory.
Mountain House won at #2 and #3 doubles with the exact same score of 6-3, 6-0 while junior Ishika Gupta, who was thrust into the line-up at the last minute due to an illness to another player, defeated Julissa Paniagua at #6 singles 6-1, 6-0.
The Lady Mustangs will travel to Patterson on Tuesday to finish the regular VOL season and then to Fairfield on Wednesday to take on Rodriguez in a non league match to finish the regular season. The league individual tournaments are on October 27th and 29th followed by the team playoffs on November 2nd, 4th, 9th and 11th and the sectional individual tournaments on November 5th and 6th.
| 10/15/2026 | |||
| Manteca @ | 1 | ||
| Mountain House | 8 | (15-2) | |
| Singles | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 Vivian Zhang | 1 | 1 | |
| Hailie | 6 | 6 | |
| 2 Alicia Rawat | 6 | 6 | |
| Reina | 3 | 4 | |
| 3 Ishita Ahelleya | 6 | 6 | |
| Saihaj | 1 | 1 | |
| 4 Diya Sundar | 6 | 6 | |
| Ekam | 2 | 3 | |
| 5 Varna Maganti | 6 | 6 | |
| Naomi | 0 | 0 | |
| 6 Ishika Gupta | 6 | 6 | |
| Julissa | 1 | 0 | |
| Doubles | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 Gauri Krishna & Druvika Samala | 6 | 3 | 10 |
| Paisley & Alyson | 1 | 6 | 7 |
| 2 Hansika Dinesh & Keerthana Jallipalli | 6 | 6 | |
| Rae & Cat | 3 | 0 | |
| 3 Aarya Patel & Divya Seshagiri | 6 | 6 | |
| Ziqi & Caitlyn | 3 | 0 |