Martlets Defeat Pelicans

The Martlets opened up our home stretch of three home matches with a stellar 4-3 win over Loomis.  The team came out strong, sweeping all 3 doubles.  The #1 and #2 teams of Will Jones ‘28 & Calvin Bixby ‘28, and Sonny Darnowski ‘28 & Rohan Satpathy ‘27, each opened by trading a few games with their opponents, before finding their groove and closing things out with 8-3 victories.  And at #3, Alessio Suarez ‘28 & Ryden Maeda ‘29 continued their very strong communication and team play to grab an 8-4 win.  Finally, continuing the trend, Caden Cramer ‘27 & Issac Kwon ‘27 sailed to an 8-0 victory in their exhibition match.

Having clinched the doubles point, we needed 3 of the 6 singles matches, and our first singles matches had already gotten underway.  Tyson Mertz ‘27 was off to a steady start at #5, reliably holding his serve and maintaining a 1-game lead at most changeovers.  At #6, Khang Ngo ‘27 fell to an early 1-4 deficit, before really steadying himself and focusing on capitalizing off his opponents’ weaknesses.  Fighting back point-by-point, with a strong and consistent serve, he only dropped one more game on the way to an 8-5 victory.  As the other singles matches started, Will Jones ‘28 fell to an early 0-6 deficit against a very skilled opponent who did an expert job of anticipating Will’s moves and responding accordingly.  Will was able to grab one game before falling 1-8.  Calvin Bixby ‘28 also had trouble at #3 against a very steady opponent who placed the ball well and with incredible patience — despite a small early lead, Calvin fell 3-8.  Still playing was Tyson at #5; by the time the score hit 6-5, Tyson had figured out the key to victory was steady baseline play with smart, carefully chosen moments of aggression, and he was able to close out the remaining games, for an 8-5 victory.  

This meant we needed either Jeff Niu ‘26 (#2) or Sam Herdeg ‘27 (#4) to win.  Jeff got off to a good start, trading service games with his opponent for most of the match, as both players played a strong baseline game with well-timed net play.  And Sam similarly started strong against an opponent who played a slower-paced but very steady game.  With Jeff up 7-6 and Sam up 7-4, things were looking good.  And then, the Loomis players seemed to get a second win, and before we knew it, despite his strong play, Jeff fell 7-9, and Sam’s opponent had closed the gap to 7-6.  With the team cheering him on, Sam kept his focus and was able to seal the team victory with an 8-6 win.  

The Grit & Grace Award today belongs to Khang Ngo.  As described above, Khang fell to an early 1-4 deficit before bouncing back to an 8-5 victory.  He accomplished this with steady focus, and skilled, consistent play — some of the best we have seen from him all season.