The intense heat and then wind at Westlake High School on Wednesday didn’t stop the Dos Pueblos High School boys’ tennis team from battling tough in a long, three-hour match.

Last year, DP lost 7-11. This year, we wanted to avenge that loss and played inspired tennis. None of us knew how the match would turn out until after the last ball was hit. Dos Pueblos came away with a 10-8 win, improving its record to 5-1 overall and 1-0 in league.

Westlake has Matthew Gottlieb, a four-star recruit, and Alexander Loh, a three-star recruit. In the first round we won only two sets. In the next round, four sets.

Freshman Patrick Corpuz (two-star recruit) defeated Gottlieb 6-4 in a lengthy set, where he led 5-0 at one point. He regrouped well to close out the match. That helped us go into the third round, tied at six sets all, but down by four games (49-53). After each nail-biting set in the third round, we counted games.

By the last match, we led 9-8 sets but tied 72-72 in games. If we lost this set, we would lose the match — despite the tie in sets, as we would lose in games. Joshua Wang (three-star recruit) dug deep, like his teammates, and took the last set from Gottlieb 6-4. As a result, we took five sets in singles and then five in doubles.

The tandems of Jake Roberts/Caleb Franzen gave us two sets. Then Greg Steigerwald did the same with two different partners, Andrew Tufenkian and Ankush Khemani. At the end, both teams congratulated each other on a well-played match.

Way to go, Chargers! Dos Pueblos will host Santa Barbara High on Thursday in its second league match.

Dos Pueblos Singles

Sean Handley 1-2
Joshua Wang 2-1
Patrick Corpuz 2-1

Dos Pueblos Doubles

Jake Roberts/Caleb Franzen 2-1
Mason Casady/Sam Boulanger 1-2
Greg Steigerwald/Andrew Tufenkian 1-1
Greg Steigerwald/Ankush Khemani 1-0

Westlake Singles

Matthew Gottlieb 1-2
Alexander Loh 3-0
Matt Hoisch 0-1
Sumant Iyer 0-2

Westlake Doubles

Harrison Han/Brian Ho 3-0
Brett Kaplan/Ben Lebedin 1-2
Alex Farkas/Frank Duan 0-3

— Liz Frech coaches boys’ tennis at Dos Pueblos High School.