Martlets Fall to Taft

It was a cold and dreary day, but that didn’t stop the Martlets from fighting hard against what we knew would be a challenging Taft team.  Right up until the end, things were looking good in doubles.  All 3 pairs were at a 5-4 or 4-5 score at one point in the set, and the #3 team of Sonny Darnowski ‘28 & Rohan Satpathy ‘27 continued their excellent communication and net play to sail to an 8-4 win.  Unfortunately, at the #1 and #2 spots, Will Jones ‘28 & Calvin Bixby ‘28 and Jeff Niu ‘26 & Sam Herdeg ‘27 found themselves on the losing end of some excellent matches, with 7-9 and 6-8 scores.  (With a bit of a similar pattern at exhibition doubles, Alessio Suarez ‘28 & Ryden Maeda ‘29 had a strong 8-3 win at #5, while Khang Ngo ‘27 & Caden Cramer ‘27 came up just short, falling 7-9 at #4.)  

Having lost the doubles point, we knew we needed to take 4 of the singles matches to clinch the team win — and for a while that looked possible.  Issac Kwon ‘28 opened up with an early lead, eventually grabbing the win at 8-2 with some very smart and steady baseline play, while Will Jones ‘28 fell quickly to a tough opponent (3-8).  Tyson Mertz ‘27 and Calvin Bixby ‘28 kept things close for the first half of their sets at the #6 and #3 spots, while Sam Herdeg ‘27 (#4) took an early 6-1 lead before his opponent took the next 3 games, bringing it to 6-4.  Meanwhile, Sonny Darnowski ‘28 (#2) had a fantastic comeback from a 2-7 deficit to tie things up at 7-7.  Both Sonny and Sam had a series of very long games with multiple deuces, and throughout they did a great job of bouncing back from some errors and fighting back from early game deficits.  Sam was able to clinch a strong 8-4 victory, but unfortunately, Tyson and Calvin eventually fell 4-8 and 5-8 despite some solid play throughout, while Sonny had a frustrating 8-9 loss after such a stellar comeback.  In our exhibition singles matches, we saw a bit more success.  Despite a tough loss by Charlie Zhang ‘29 at #8, Ryden Maeda ‘29 and Rohan Satpathy ‘27 had great 8-3 and 8-0 wins at #10 and #9, while Luke Champoux ‘28 amassed a big cheering section as the last match on the court, clinching an 8-7 (8-6 in the tiebreaker).

Despite the team loss, everyone fought hard, played smartly, and learned from their matches.  Everyone is looking forward to a well-deserved rest this weekend, before facing off against Deerfield at home next Wednesday.

The Grit & Grace award goes to Issac Kwon for his smart, patient, and steady play at #5 singles.  Issac’s opponent ran down a lot of great shots, and Issac never gave up, really thinking about ball placement and picking his spots well to execute winners.  He put into play both in-game coaching advice as well as skills we have been practicing throughout the season, in a way that fit perfectly with his game and today’s opponent.