From the archives: Pang is 2012 PAL champ

And it’s spelled P-A-N-G.

Carlmont’s Corey Pang is the Peninsula Athletic League individual champion by storming through the bracket and eventually taking down Burlingame’s Scott Taggart 6-2, 6-1 in the Friday’s final.

Up until the final, Pang won 36 straight games, beating three different opponents 6-0, 6-0.

And come the championship match with Taggart, there simply was no denying Pang.

“It feels pretty good after a long season,” Pang said. “Especially after him getting me last time. I get this one.”

Pang was referring to an April 16 defeat at the hands of a then red-hot Taggart. The Burlingame No. 1 singles player outlasted Pang 6-7(4), 6-2, 7-6 (1) to pick up his biggest win of the year.

“Last time, I wasn’t in it mentally,” Pang said. “I let my emotions get to me. And once I started getting upset, I started losing confidence in my strokes and he just outplayed me then.”

“Both times, Corey played really well,” Taggart said. “Last match, when I beat him, it as a close match. We went back and forth but I pulled it out. This game, he played really well. I came into it a little nervous — first finals for high school tennis. He just stayed solid. He’s a really good player, stayed in it. I just made more errors. I give him props. He played really well. That’s why he’s the No. 1 seed.

“[The goal was to be] mentally prepared to fight. I wasn’t expecting him to give it to me so I had to battle for every point.”

Pang played like a man on a mission throughout the PAL tournament. Friday’s match against Taggart was no exception.

Pang jumped out early in the first set, winning 6-2 in relatively comfortable fashion.

In the second set, Pang simply overpowered the very talented Taggart and made the set look effortless at times.

“I was just hoping to get by every match,” Pang said of his tournament efforts. “Some of the scores didn’t reflect how well some of the other players played. But, I played the big points well and that’s the difference between this year and last year.”

“I tend to play better against guys that are better than me,” Taggart said when asked if nerves played a serious role in the match. “He rips the ball. I’m nervous, but I had less pressure. He just played really well. I just made a little more errors. He just went in full strength.”

El Camino’s Josiah Faustino capped an impressive run of his own in the PAL tournament, beating out Menlo-Atherton’s Nick Fratt 6-1, 6-3 to take third place.

Faustino loss to Pang in the semifinal, but before then, the Colt was without the benefit of a first round bye. He beat Stephen Tran of Oceana, Devon Hughes of Aragon and James Tanjuatco of Mills to reach the semifinal.

On the boys’ doubles side, the combination of M-A’s Matt Giordano and Zeke Brown bested Carlmont’s Matt Sidell and Pete Eakin 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 to capture the PAL doubles title.

Giordano and Brown bounced back nicely after Sidell and Eakin raced out to a comfortable lead in the second set and evened things up.

But after a brief pow-wow between sets, the Bears regrouped and their strategy of forcing the Scots deep worked to perfection.

The Newcombs of Woodside took third place, defeating Carlmont’s usual No. 1 doubles team Ben Knoot and Byron Wu 6-3, 6-1.