Bearcats hold off Knights

“Going in, we knew we had to play (well),” Daquioag said. “With injuries and illness, I was concerned.”

Daquioag had to split up his No. 2 doubles team, Andre Khmelnitsky and Kevin Zhang, putting them in the No. 2 and No. 3 singles spot. Daquioag then had to take his No. 3 and No. 4 singles players, Brian Zhong and Justin Lau, and team them up for the No. 1 doubles tandem because both were nursing ankle injuries.

Bearcats’ No. 4 singles player Thursday? Zach Tuzar, cracking the starting lineup for the first time this season.

Only Khmelnitsky won his match, but the others certainly held their own. But to add to the drama, Khmelnitsky tweaked his right leg as he went into a slide on the Hillsdale hard courts for a return early in the second set. He hobbled around for bit before going into the gym to see the Hillsdale trainer.

Did Khmelnitsky come close to having default?

“Not happening,” Khmelnitsky said. “[The trainer] just said to stretch it out. I was in the zone. I didn’t even feel my leg.”

Khmelnitsky was down 4-1 in the opening set, but went on to win six of the next seven games to pull out a 7-5 win. After he returned from his injury timeout, he went out to finish off Hillsdale’s Pascal Rhee, 7-5, 6-1.

“I was looking at the third singles match as being the key because I didn’t know if Andre could finish his match,” Daquioag said. “He was in the zone today. He played really well.”

Hillsdale head coach Jackie Nactigall was equally proud of the way her team played. After dropping the first three matches of the season to the top three teams in the Bay Division — Carlmont, Menlo-Atherton and Aragon — and then falling to 0-4 with a loss to Burlingame Tuesday, the Knights finally picked up their first win of PAL play Wednesday 5-2 over Mills.

And despite the loss to the Bearcats, Nactigall was happy to see her team battle, putting out what she said was the team’s best performance to date.

“I feel very satisfied. We played so wonderfully,” Nactigall said. “We beat Mills (Wednesday), but I felt we played better (Thursday).”

All the matches stayed close early on, but San Mateo (3-2 PAL Bay) took an early lead with wins from the No. 3 doubles team of Rohil Kalra and Connor Dam, 6-3, 6-0, followed by a 6-3, 6-1 from the No. 2 doubles duo of Aakash Parthasarathy and Brandon Yermash to give the Bearcats a 2-0 lead.

It became a 3-0 lead after Khmelnitsky’s win at No. 2 singles.

But then Hillsdale (1-5) started to claw back into the match. Casey Mulkerrins, playing in just his third match of the season after helping the Knights’ basketball team to a Central Coast Section title and a spot in the Northern California tournament, won his match at No. 4 singles, 6-3, 6-3.

It was his first singles of the match of the season as Nactigall moved him from the No. 3 doubles spot.

“I feel he can handle singles,” Nactigall said. “He has consistency.”

When asked how much he practiced tennis during the basketball season, he said, “I tried to hit every Sunday, but that didn’t always work out.”

Mulkerrin’s win was followed shortly by David Liu’s 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) win at No. 3 singles. He won the first set, 6-4, but found himself down 5-2 in the second. But he won four of the next five games to send the set to a tiebreaker, where he finally prevailed.

It was Liu’s third win in a row and Nactigall said he was the most improved player on the team.

As Hillsdale cut the San Mateo lead to 3-2, the Knights needed to win the final two matches left on the court. They had a chance to put more pressure on the Bearcats as the Knights’ No. 1 doubles team of Jared Lipka and George Jiang won their first set 6-4 and were up 5-2 in the second, looking to close it out.

But the San Mateo tandem of Zhong and Lau rallied. They won the four of the next five games to take the set to a tiebreaker and then outlasted the Hillsdale pair 11-9 to force a third set.

Meanwhile at No. 1 singles, Hillsdale’s Marcus Cheng, who was down a set to San Mateo’s Jonathan Chan, was serving with the second set tied at 4-all. But Chan broke Cheng for a 5-4 lead and then served out to earn the victory, 6-3, 6-4 and clinch the match for the Bearcats.

That allowed the No. 1 doubles match to use a super tiebreaker in lieu of a third set, which Hillsdale won to notch a 6-4, 6-7 (9-11), (10-7) win.

“I was over there sweating,” Daquioag said. “I’m proud of them with their hard work.”