Boys tennis defeats Chadwick High School despite a tough road to pull out the victory

By Casey Sublette
Staff Writer

In the Mustangs’ eighth regular-season game at home on Wednesday, the Costa boys tennis team beat the Chadwick Dolphins, 10-8, in a match decided by the final game.

Number-one singles player junior Michael Carella lost his first match to the number-one Chadwick player, junior Maximilian Hawkins, by a score of 6-2. Despite his initial loss to Hawkins, Carella bounced back and won his next two games, 6-1 and 6-4.

“Michael was solid,” Hawkins said. “He had good volleys and was a good competitor.”

Doubles players freshman Jason Wu and junior Kyvan Elep swept all three of their games with scores of 6-2, 6-2 and 6-1. The two were originally singles players but have only lost one match since the coaches paired them together.

“We didn’t think we were doubles players,” Wu said. “But we’ve been doing really well. It is strangely working.”

The first round of matches was not great for Costa. Elep and Wu were the only ones to win a game. Freshman Evan Han came up short to junior Matt Suman, a former Costa tennis player.

“They were a pretty tough team,” Han said. “We have been a pretty good team, and it’s going to be a tough season.”

The second round fared better for the Mustangs, who won four of their six matches. Junior Tom Wissel and senior Brian Brothers won their game, 6-1, nearly shutting out the Dolphins.

For the final round, the Mustangs won four of six games again. Han shut out his opponent, 6-0, in his final game of the day. Elep and Wu won their third match of the day to help the Mustangs get closer to a win.

In the final match of the day to decide the winner of the game, the win was in Carella’s hands. Suman played him very tough, but Carella came up with the win by a score of 6-4.

“I thought we competed well,” coach Joe Ciasulli said. “We went in knowing two tough singles and a tough double team. We had to have no margin of error, and we came up with the win.”

The Mustangs played Peninsula yesterday at home in their second Bay League game of the season, but results were unavailable due to time of publication. Costa’s next game will be on Tuesday at 3 p.m. against Santa Monica at home.