The San Marcos boys swept the nine singles sets to lead a 12-6 win over Dos Pueblos Thursday and gain a solid hold on first place in the Channel League.
Royals singles players Masato Perera, Alex Chow, and Jed Greenwald swept the nine sets with the total loss of only eight games.
Dos Pueblos won six of the nine doubles sets, with each team — Keaton Cross/Connor MacPherson, Julian Choi/Franklin Truong, and Kai Yakushko/Daniel Truong — winning two sets and losing one.
“Today was a big match against our cross town rivals DP,” Royals coach Jonny Sapp said. “They are a well respected team where we know we had to keep our focus or else they could come up with the win.”
The score was the same as the two teams’ first meeting on March 8, when the Royals also swept the singles sets. San Marcos is now 6-0 in league play and 10-2 overall, and Dos Pueblos is 4-2 and 10-2.
San Marcos is ranked No. 9 in CIF-SS Division 1, and Dos Pueblos is ranked No. 3 in Division 2. The Royals’ Perera is the defending CIF-SS singles champion.
“Overall we played very well by playing smart, keeping steady the majority of the time, hitting big serves, making big returns, being aggressive and playing good defense and turning it into offense by closing out at the net,” San Marcos coach Jonny Sapp said.
“If we are going to make a push at the CIF title we are going to have to cut out the double faults and unforced errors, because just shedding a few errors will be the deciding factor for a shot at the CIF title.”
“We have a lot of our season left,” said DP coach Laura Housinger, “and want to keep seeing the best lineups for our future matches; all of the guys are hungry and eager to keep pushing themselves to improve for the weeks ahead.”