Daily Journal honorees thrive at the next level

She sent me screenshots of the top female players in the tournament and, while there was the UC Davis player on the list, my eyes were immediately drawn to a familiar name: Mila Mulready.

The 2023 San Mateo Daily Journal Girls’ Tennis Player of the Year, Mulready is prepping for her sophomore season playing at Virginia Tech.

Not only was Mulready’s name on the list, she was the No. 4 seed out of a field of 55. And she lived up to her seeding. Mulready, a 2024 graduate of Burlingame High School, advanced all the way to the championship match, before falling to top-seeded Connie Ma, who is entering her sophomore season at Stanford.

Ma won in straight sets 6-1, 6-2 but, before that, Mulready had dropped only one set. After a first-round bye, Mulready opened her tournament with a 6-1, 6-2 win in the second round. In the third round, she beat the ninth seed, 6-0, 6-2. In the quarterfinals, Mulready won a first-set tiebreaker on her way to a 7-6(8), 6-0 win over the No. 5 seed.

The semifinals saw Mulready drop her first set of the tournament. She won the first set 6-4, but No. 4 seed Klara Kosan won the second set 6-1. Mulready, however, punched her ticket to the championship match by winning the third set, 6-2, before falling to Ma.

Mulready’s run to the final shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. She had a strong freshman year with the Hokies, finishing the year with a singles record of 15-7, which was the third-most wins on the team. she went 6-0 against Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and finished the season on a 7-1 run.

She also went 5-3 playing doubles, giving her an overall record of 20-10.

But Mulready, who also made the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles tournament with her partner Anthony Kerin, was not the only familiar face in the field. Joining Mulready on the women’s side was incoming Sacred Heart Prep senior Charlotte Weber. Also a No. 9 seed, Weber won her first-round singles match 6-2, 6-0, and won her second-round match when her opponent was forced to abandon the match tied 3-all in the first set because of injury.

Weber’s run, however, came to an end in the round of 16, falling to Kosan 6-0, 6-3.

Weber also played in the women’s double draw, but she and her partner Kayla Mitchell, lost in the first round, 7-5, 6-3.

On the men’s side, recent Aragon graduate Akbar Beg played in the men’s singles draw. Beg was one of the few in the 256-man field to play a first-round match and he advanced following a 7-5, 6-2 victory. More than two-thirds of players in the first round received a bye.

But it was one-and-done for Beg, who lost in the second round to second-seeded Sam Landau, 6-2, 6-1.

***

Meanwhile, that other country club sport, golf, was taking center stage in San Francisco Monday with the start of the 129th annual US Amateur tournament, this year hosted by the Olympic Club.

And like the Brightwork Open, the US Amateur has a player of local interest: 2024 Serra graduate Willy Walsh, who is preparing to play his sophomore year at Pepperdine.

This year’s US Amateur features 312 players and the first two rounds, Monday and Tuesday, are stroke play. Each player gets one round on each of Olympic Club’s two course: the Lake Course, where five US Opens have been played, and the Ocean Course, which is considered the easier of the two tracks.

The top 64 players then engage in match play, with the final being a 36-hole marathon Sunday.

Walsh was one of the first players off Monday, teeing off on the ninth hole on the Lake Course at 7 a.m. He got off to a strong start, with birdies on two of the first three holes.

But back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 14 and 15 dropped Walsh back to even and another bogey at 18 put him at 1-over at the turn.

Two more bogeys at holes 4 and 5 dropped him to 3-over before finishing his round with a double-bogey 5 at the par-3 8th.

Walsh is tied for 158th after Monday’s first round. He’ll get a chance to move into the top 64 when he plays the Ocean Course Tuesday.

Walsh qualified for the US Amateur following a round of 5-under at Ruby Hills Golf Club in Pleasanton last month, where he finished fourth.

Like Mulready at Virginia Tech, Walsh had a great freshman year at Pepperdine. He played 40 rounds for the Waves, with an average score of 71.95, with a season-best 9-under 63 at the Amer Ari Invitational — which tied for second-best round ever by a Pepperdine player. He also tied for 11th at the Western Intercollegiate, which is hosted by Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz and was a first-team, All-West Coast Conference (WCC) selection and was named to the 2025 All-WCC preseason team.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.