Varsity boys tennis won 13-5 against the Bonita High School Bearcats at home Tuesday, March 18, maintaining their undefeated record this season.
The Mustangs dominated the first round. Doubles one senior Scott Chen and sophomore Timmothy Chen won their game first 6-0, followed by a 6-2 win for both doubles two seniors Calvin Bautista and Tyrik Chen and doubles three seniors Matthew Chou and Daniel Lee.
“So far it’s looking really good,” head coach Joe Fasheh shared after the first round. “I think my boys will pull it off because I have faith in them. This is the first time I’ve actually played the boys from Bonita, so it’s still one of those mysterious type factors that I’m not sure what we’re going to get. By looking at the scores in the first round, I would like to see a lot of bagels today.”
The singles players took the lead: singles one senior Marcus Phan, singles two senior Tyler Wu and singles three sophomore Brad Wong won their games 6-3, 6-3 and 6-1, respectively. The first round ended with the Mustangs leading 6-0.
“I think I had a rough start, but once I started gaining momentum — getting a rhythm for my shots and getting a rally going — I got into the guy’s head and warmed up,” Phan said. “Bonita is actually better than I thought.”
In the second round, the Mustangs won two doubles and singles games, securing the team’s win with a total score of 10-2. The third round saw a few substitutions: sophomore Tony Yuan subbed in for singles three junior Apollo Lee and sophomore Brandon Lee subbed in for doubles three Chou and Daniel. Despite losing both games, they gained valuable game time experience. The third round ended with three losses and three victories, concluding the game 13-5.
“My first few games with Calvin are usually always kind of bad because we’re warming up, but we get better. I played with some decent volleys and my serves—we won both my service games—they couldn’t return,” Tyrik said.
Throughout the season, the boys have worked on improving physically. Fasheh has required his players to go to the gym every Wednesday from 3-5 p.m. They have freedom over their choice of workouts but he has established a requirement to work at least 3-4 muscle groups and some type of cardio fitness.
“Their strong suit is that they never give up. They’re very tenacious and tough. In some parts of the game, sometimes they’re not the better player, but they’re the fitter player, and that ends up with them getting the victory. If they can’t outhit the person, they outrun them, and I think putting them in a gym once a week has helped a lot,” Fasheh said.
