Santa Ana, CA — First, thank you parents who stepped up to drive this afternoon - it was a big help and you got to see some good tennis. The boys are getting better and they had fun today. Just prior to the start, the boys got together and based on leadership styles and respect, selected Declan Hughes and Stirling McLaughlin as team captains for the season. Well deserved. JV Prep got 1 more set than JV at same location 48 hours ago. We were 2 tie-breaks away from winning this 10-8. And 2 tie-breaks away from sweeping 9 singles matches. Tying 9-9 would have left us 3 games shy in game count, which is how you settle a tie when sets are all even at end of “regulation”. Overall, there were 5 tie-breaker sets, we won 2 of those, both in singles. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in all our 16 years at JSerra, we’ve never had a singles player involved in 3 back to back to back tie-breaker sets - which is exactly what Brayden Castro did today, with less than 5 min rest between sets. With a Herculean effort, he played the longest of everybody, from 3 - 5:35, coming back from 1-5 to force a tie-breaker in round #2. Opening up in the first round, kudos to rookies Anson Albertson and Robbie Schweitzer, who won their very first competitive set of tennis, 6-2 at line #3 doubles. You can’t win close matches if the 3’s don’t beat the other team’s 3’s, so Anson and Robbie did their jobs - well done guys. Both Omar Ali and Stirling McLaughlin, swept all 3 sets of singles they played, giving us 6. Brayden won his first tie-breaker for the 7th and the one win in doubles was the 8th set. We get another crack at them at the end of the season. Next up: Tesoro, home, next Tuesday, 3pm.