On Monday, April 22, the Aragon boys tennis team defeated Carlmont 4-3 in the PAL tournament. Previously, Carlmont and Aragon had been tied for second place in the league. With this win, Aragon is PAL champion and will be heading to the CCS championships.
Junior Isaac Wang, second -ranked singles, won his match, along with third-ranked singles, senior Rahul Joshi.
First-ranked doubles pair freshman Landers Ngirchemat and sophomore Matt Fowler as well as second-ranked doubles pair sophomores Fabio Gallardo and Alex Ilyin won their matches.
Last Thursday, Aragon defeated Woodside in a league match. The Dons claimed all singles and doubles matches.
The week before, on Tuesday, April 9, Aragon also claimed a 5-2 win again San Mateo. The singles started out strong and kept consistent throughout. Top ranked singles player, junior Devon Hughes says, “I’ve been playing since I was a freshman. In general, I’ve been playing since I was 8—so 8 years now.”
With much experience, Hughes emerged victorious in his matches. In the lead from the very beginning of the match, there was a retirement from San Mateo as their player got injured.
The third single, Senior Rahul Joshi, won his matches by a big amount. The scores were 6-1 and 6-0. Joshi observes, “I lost the first game, but then I came back. It felt pretty good and I wasn’t playing too aggressively. I was at medium pace and it was good.”
This kind of consistency passed to the fourth singles. Freshman Jonathan Liu won 6-0 and 6-1 in his matches. Liu comments, “I want to maintain it. I want to be able to play it in college.”
As a result from the retirement in the first singles, there was a super tiebreaker. Junior Isaac Wang played, and after he lost the first point, tensions rose. In the super tiebreaker, the player who reaches the first ten points wins. After a series of intense, short-lived games, San Mateo emerged victorious at 10-8.
Despite that defeat, Aragon still dominated and won the overall match. Coach Dave Owdom says, “They’ve done very well so far. You never know. Every match is a new match. You never know what will happen. Right now, we’re in second place.” The Aragon boys’ tennis team has won 10 out of the 11 league games so far.
Wang comments, “Right now, we’re second in the standings, behind MA. They’re really good, they’re really consistent, and they have really powerful shots.” Joshi adds, “Our matches against MA were more difficult than the other ones. It’s something we can win and we should win next time.”
Owdom concludes, “I would like the team to win the league. We’re in second place right now, so we have a shot. As a goal for the team, I would just like to see them get there so they get to play the better people. When they play tennis, this should be a fun experience. Being a member of a team is another goal. These guys have great chemistry and camaraderie, and all these things should happen by being a member of the tennis team.”
