Boys tennis: Branson takes down Redwood to finish unbeaten in MCAL
The Branson School boys tennis team dethroned Redwood on Thursday with 4-3 MCAL victory to complete the Bulls’ first unbeaten league season ever.
In her fourth year as Branson coach, Chrissie Costamagna had a feeling this would be the Bulls’ season. Costamagna, the only woman coaching MCAL boys tennis, has also led the Branson girls team to an MCAL championship.
“I’m ecstatic for the boys,” said Costamagna. “They’ve worked really hard. The whole team is solid.”
Branson, which has not won an MCAL title since at least 2015, wrapped up the league regular-season championship with a 16-0 record and is 18-0 overall.
Redwood (13-2) has one match remaining against Archie Williams.
The MCAL team tournament starts April 18, with the final set for April 20 at Tam. The individual singles and doubles tournaments are April 24-26 at College of Marin.
Redwood coach Craig Flax is really hoping his Giants get to face Branson for a third time. Branson also beat the Giants 4-3 earlier in the season.
The Giants not only won MCAL regular-season and playoff titles last season, but they went on to reach the North Coast Section Division I final and take third in the NorCal tournament.
“The boys are looking forward to the playoffs,” said Flax. “It’s good to be challenged. I was thinking next year would be Branson’s season, but it’s high school tennis and anything can happen.”
Thursday’s match wasn’t quite as dramatic as the first meeting when Branson’s No. 1 doubles team pulled out a narrow 10-point tiebreaker for the win. Round Two was decided much earlier when Branson’s No. 2 singles player Tommie Higgins bested Mateo Cubillos 6-1, 6-2 with two matches still on the court.
“We had some tough losses last year,” said Higgins. “We wanted it badly. Our coaches told us this is our year and we have a really good team.”
Branson’s No. 3 and No. 4 singles players, Chase Hoeveler and Ishwar Jayaraman, were impressive with straight-set wins that lasted about 45 minutes to send the Bulls on their way to victory. Hoeveler downed Lukas Berger 6-2, 6-0 and Jayaraman won 6-1, 6-1 over Marco Lombardo.
Hoeveler, one of the most improved players on the team according to Costamagna, attacked the net repeatedly to turn back Berger and get off the court first. Within a minute Jayaraman sealed his win for a 2-0 Branson lead.
Branson also won No. 2 doubles as Leighton Fraser and Oliver Goldman defeated Ollie Weston and Julian Monatlik 6-2, 6-3.
It looked like the Bulls were going to clinch their title even sooner when the No. 3 doubles team of James Stovell and Andrew Peng jumped ahead 9-5 in the third-set tiebreaker. But Redwood’s Liam Martinez and Eric Srevetan reeled off six straight points to pull out the 6-1, 3-6, 1-0 (9) win.
Redwood also won No. 1 singles thanks to Jackson Sichel and No. 1 doubles behind Chris Lee and Jackson Bramlette.