Photo by Amanda Lin

Thanks to Maranatha tennis for this report:

Boys Tennis:

Maranatha’s first match on Tuesday at San Gabriel was a beatdown that the Minutemen wouldn’t soon forget.

For most of the team, it was the first competitive tennis match they’ve played in. Young … inexperienced … even clueless at times … are all fair and appropriate descriptions for this fledgling squad.

But one adjective that is not apropos is … heartless.

Determined to bounce back and apply lessons learned from that humbling defeat, the Minutemen did just that and improved their quality of play, competing hard the entire afternoon.

MHS finished the first round down, 2-4, with victories by No. 2 singles Cherif Sauma, 6-1, and No. 1 doubles Hayden Geeting/Nate Schumann, 6-3.

The second round saw Sauma and Geeting/Schumann duplicate their 6-1 and 6-3 results, while No. 2 doubles Malachi Dharmaratne/Yohan Park registered their first win of the day, 6-4, after losing by that score in the first round.

With the overall match score at, 5-6, the last set on court featured No. 1 singles, Matthew Yip, who was behind, 1-5.

Knowing the stakes, Yip rallied back to even the score at 5-5, before falling behind 5-6.

Holding serve to force a tiebreaker, Yip played with purpose, winning the tiebreaker, 7-2, evening the match at 6-6 with one round to go.

Each team gave it their all until the last point, neither wanting to go down in defeat.

Alternates Elbert Sun/Reggie Park, who subbed in, took down Alhambra’s No. 2 doubles, 6-3, while No. 3 singles, Russell Sze, didn’t back down and found a way to get 2 games from his superior opponent, who just lost, 6-7, to Yip.

In the case of a 9-9 tie, Sze knew every game he could get would count.

At 7-7, Yip continued his surging play, winning 6-0, to give the Minutemen an 8-7 advantage.

Both Geeting/Schumann and Dharmaratne/Park trailed 3-4 at this point; but both teams doubled down on their focus and played with courage, each prevailing, 6-4, to secure Maranatha its first victory of the season.

It was a victory sooner than expected for the Minutemen, who know they will have to pay their dues this season and have a long way to go, in order to learn how to be a competitive squad.

They are eager to pay and eager to improve, which may accelerate their learning curve, if they are able to stay focused on their process.

Up next: The Minutemen (1-1) host Schurr HS on Tuesday at Muir High School.