Dons clinch first tennis title

That was a big upgrade and helped the Dons to precipice of the Bay Division title. Taking on the defending champ Bearcats Thursday, Aragon took that final step that eluded them for so long. Their 6-1 win over San Mateo locked up the Dons’ first ever PAL Bay Division championship.

“It means a lot to me,” said Cooper Wong, Aragon’s No. 4 singles player, a four-year varsity player and team co-captain.

“I knew what we had, what it takes (to win a Bay title). I definitely knew we had what it takes to get it done.”

Beg might have been the key piece to it all. Beg’s return then forced last year’s No. 1 singles player, Veraaz Khan, to the No. 2 role, which suited him much better.

“Veraaz was at 1 (singles) last year and he got beat up quite a bit,” Owdom said. “This year, neither (Khan or Beg) has lost a match.”

While the final score looks lopsided, it doesn’t tell the whole story because San Mateo went down like a champion is supposed to: fighting. Aragon (13-0 PAL Bay, 14-1 overall) had already beaten the Bearcats once this season, 5-2 March 12, and the Dons looked like they were going to make a statement as they won the first set in all seven matches.

Beg and the No. 3 doubles team of Ziv Rapaport and Justin Wong came off the court without minutes of its each other for the first two team points in the best-of-7 contest. Beg stormed through his match with a 6-1, 6-3 decision. Rapoport and Wong were even more dominant, coming up with a 6-1, 6-1 decision.

When Wong finished off his 6-1, 6-4 win at No. 4 singles, the Dons had built a 3-0 lead and needed to win just one of the four remaining matches.

Wong’s win was important not only to the team, but to himself, as he has worked on being more aggressive with his game. And it showed in match Tuesday, as moved around and hit returns with authority, flying out to a 6-1 win in the first set.

In the second, he was up 5-2 and serving for the match when things got a little shaky. San Mateo’s Rishav Mukherjee broke Wong’s serve and then held to close the second-set gap to 5-4 before Wong broke Mukherjee to get the win.

“I felt the nerves,” Wong said.

Owdom and the rest of the Dons were also feeling some nerves as the Bearcats did not go down without a fight. Of the final four matches, the Bearcats sent three of them to third-set, super tiebreakers to decide them.

“One point here, one point there (was the deciding factor),” said San Mateo head coach John Daquioag.

San Mateo (11-2), however, managed to win only one of them. The No. 1 team of Ronit Jambekar and Dylan Chu jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first set, only to see Aragon’s Thomas Nie and Keiya Wada rally to win six of the next seven games to take the first set, 6-4.

But Jambekar and Chu rebounded. They rolled past the Aragon pair 6-2 in the second set and then prevailed in the super tiebreaker, 10-8.

“[San Mateo is] a good team. … They’re not going to go down easy,” Owdom said. “You don’t take anything for granted until you get that last point.

“You never know what can happen.”

The Bearcats had a chance to get even closer as No. 3 singles player Nikko Apikelis rallied back from a set down to Aragon’s Darrin O’Brien. O’Brien took the first set 6-4 and looked poised to win in straight sets as he got a break late in the second set to tie it at 5-all. But Apikelis broke right back and then held serve to close out a 7-5 win in the second set.

Apikelis jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in the super tiebreaker, but O’Brien stayed patient and eventually pulled out the 10-8 decision to give the Dons’ their clinching team point.

“Awesome match on Aragon’s part,” Daquioag said. “They’re a top-notch group and well-deserving of the PAL championship.”

The Dons then closed out the day by winning the final two matches. The No. 2 doubles team of Jack He and Max Gan held off San Mateo’s Paolo Toledo and Ryan Tseng in three sets, 7-5, 5-7, 10-8. Khan then earned the Dons’ their final point of the day with a 6-3, 6-4 win at No. 2 doubles.

“We’ve had good teams over the years, but we’ve had a really good league,” Owdom said of the Dons’ title drought, citing the dominance of, first, Menlo School, and then when the Knights left the PAL, Menlo-Atherton replaced them and then ruled the Bay Division for more than a decade.

“I’m very lucky because I had a lot of guys coming back (from last season).”

Aragon will now go for an undefeated PAL season as the Dons host M-A Tuesday.