Mariners reach SCCAL finals; locals ousted in T-CAL tourney

Watsonville High’s Ivo Basor serves to an Alvarez High player during a doubles match at the Tri-County Athletic League tournament Wednesday at Salinas High. (Glenn Cravens/Register-Pajaronian)

SALINAS — Several local boys tennis players were able to notch victories, while others tried their best but couldn’t get any during the Tri-County and Santa Cruz Coast athletic league tennis tournaments on Wednesday.

In the SCCAL, Ryan Light of Aptos had his championship match against Santa Cruz’s Walker Nodine suspended because of rain. They will try to resume it today at 4 p.m. at Seascape Tennis Club in Aptos.

Light won the first-set tiebreaker 7-5 to win the set 7-6. Walker was up a break at 3-2 and serving down 0-15 in the second set when play was called.

In the doubles final, Santa Cruz’s Carl Thigpen and Ben Bacher prevailed in straight sets over Aptos’ Eli Dennis and Rousseau Gleitsman.

Thigpen and Bacher won the second-set tiebreaker 7-3 to take the match 6-2, 7-6.

It was a rough road for locals in the T-CAL postseason tournaments at Salinas High.

Watsonville High’s Ivo Basor and Lamar Cowans were up a set on Alvarez’s Jeremy Ortiz and Jose Ramirez, but they couldn’t hold it and were eliminated 5-7, 6-2, 1-0 (6).

Basor and Cowans were a fairly new team, so it took some time to adjust, both said.

“I thought we played well as a team,” Basor said. “We played a good first set, and both of us got some good first-serves in.”

The serving of Ortiz and Ramirez got to the Watsonville duo in the second set. Meanwhile, they had some serving troubles of their own in that set and fell behind early.

A few returns that had some velocity to them ended up in the net or went wide.

“We wanted to attack them, but the other team did well with their placement,” Basor said. “They played the ball well.”

Monte Vista Christian’s David Lee was eliminated by Palma’s A.J. Yates 8-2 in the first round of the singles tournament.

Watsonville’s Nick Antonio was also eliminated in the first round, as Monterey’s Robert Hernandez prevailed 8-0.

Watsonville’s Danny Vargas couldn’t get past the second round, as he was eliminated in straight sets.

The tournament is scheduled to resume today at Salinas High.



For the complete article see the 04-26-2012 issue.

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