Martlets Finish Season with a Win

The Martlets clinched a fantastic win under the blazing sun against a talented JV squad from AOF, with Sam Herdeg ‘27 once again finding the decisive win after coming from behind.  It all started with a strong showing from our doubles teams of Sonny Darnowski ‘28 & Rohan Satpathy ‘27 at #1, Jeff Niu ‘’26 & Sam Herdeg ‘27 at #2, and the recently unstoppable Alessio Suarez ‘28 & Ryden Maeda ‘29 at #3.  All had close matches, generally keeping things within a game or two until grabbing some decisive games for 8-6, 8-6, and 8-5 victories, respectively.  All 3 pairs continued to display fantastic communication and good team strategy, keeping one another focused and adapting smartly to their respective opponents.  Issac Kwon ‘28 & Caden Cramer ‘27 also had a decisive win in their exhibition match.

The doubles point gave us a much-needed cushion going into singles, particularly with a slow start to the singles matches.  Tyson Mertz ‘27 had trouble against an unconventional opponent at #6, falling 3-8, and Will Jones ‘28 just couldn’t grab a game at #1, despite some strong play.  At #2, Jeff Niu ‘26 traded leads with his opponent, before tying things up at 7-7, and then 8-8.  Unfortunately, Jeff couldn’t catch a break in the tiebreaker, ultimately falling 8-9.  Now down 1-3 in the match, we got a boost from a solid win by Khang Ngo ‘27 at #5, who grabbed an 8-3 victory on the heels of strong serving and great groundstroke game.  Although he started significantly after Sam Herdeg’s #4 match, Sonny Darnowski ‘28 traded early games at #3 before taking a 6-3 lead on the way to an 8-3 win, spurred on by a rare but very welcome cheering section of his friends.  This left the team victory on the shoulders of Sam Herdeg, who also traded games before falling to a 4-7 deficit.  With the team cheering him on, Sam closed that gap to 6-7 and then 8-7, before it tied up at 8-8.  By this point, it was a battle of endurance, and Sam had the edge, quickly closing out the tiebreaker at 7-2.  It was a fantastic home win, on the way to our final match with Berkshire on Wednesday.

The Grit & Grace Award today actually goes to a player not even mentioned above.  Charlie Zhang ‘29 played an excellent exhibition singles match at #7.  Against a player twice his size, he fell to a 1-4 deficit before fighting back to a well-deserved 9-8 win (7-4 in the tiebreaker).  Charlie was able to find consistency on his serve, and his powerful topspin forehand kept his opponent on the defensive for much of the match.  Despite being down, Charlie kept his focus to snag his first singles victory of the season!