Photo of Malachi Dharmaratne courtesy of Amanda Lin

Boys Tennis:

Thanks to Maranatha tennis for this report:

The Minutemen will head into Spring Break on a positive note after continuing to show improvement in defeating the Oilers of Montebello.

Both teams are similar in that nine of their players are brand new to their teams.

It was a strange setup, with doubles matches being played on one set of courts on one part of campus, while singles matches were played several blocks away.

The Oilers’ coach remembered that Maranatha’s Coach Arthur Hsieh refused to play their girls CIF-SS quarterfinals playoff match under this setup a few years ago, instead insisting on playing all matches on four courts in one location instead.

Today’s contest was a clear reminder as to why Coach Hsieh insisted on that, as he didn’t see a single minute of singles play, leaving singles coaching duties to assistant coach, Preston Geeting.

Coaches Hsieh and Geeting texted one another updates and thoughts throughout the contest.

Both of Maranatha’s doubles and singles lineups won their respective matchups, with doubles securing 8 wins and singles winning 5.

No. 1 Hayden Geeting/Nate Schumann and #2 Malachi Dharmaratne/Yohan Park each swept their opponents – 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 and 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 – respectively. #3 Elbert Sun/Reggie Park went 4-6, 6-1, 6-0.

In singles, #1 Matthew Yip survived a tough first set, 6-4, before cruising, 6-2, 6-0 in the remaining sets.

#2 Cherif Sauma rallied from being down the entire set to survive his first set, 7-5.

He won another close one, 6-4, in his second set, before being subbed out. #3 Willem Klop and subsititutes, Dien Xie and Elvis Zhang, were not able to secure a win in the rest of singles action.

After the break, Maranatha returns to action on April 9, when they visit the favored Monrovia Wildcats, who have fared better against common opponents.