TENNIS: Sterling sweeps Newman

STERLING – It did not take long for most of the Sterling tennis team to cap off their matches Wednesday against Newman.

But for Sterling’s Connor Pham, it was a long day. In both his No. 2 singles match against Newman’s Logan Palmer and again in the No. 1 doubles match alongside Luke Valentino while facing James Rhodes and Tyler Bonnell, his matches saw a comfortable win in the first set, and a tight back-and-forth second set.

Eventually, Pham’s two matches were both wins for the Golden Warriors, as were all of the others in a 9-0 Sterling win over the Comets, though that meant Pham was on the court for 2 1/2 hours with little break in between.

In singles play, he beat Palmer 6-2, 6-7 (1-7) 10-4, battling through a second set in which neither player could build much of a lead before reasserting control in the tiebreaker.

“Early on he was a bit inconsistent, and then in the second set he was getting a lot more balls in, so it was harder to play against,” Pham said.

The second-set turnaround came after Palmer began to not play as aggressively, just go for returns to keep points alive. He was able to do that, even when Pham started to play to Palmer’s backhand.

“That kind of worked out. I hit some nicer shots,” Palmer said.

In the doubles match, Pham and Valentino took the first set 6-1, then led 3-0 in the second set before Rhodes and Bonnell came roaring back.

They eventually tied things up at 5-5 in the second set before Pham and Valentino broke their serve to send Pham to the service line up 6-5. The Comets hit a pair of balls long to get the Warriors’ duo to match point before Rhodes hit a winner at the net to make it 40-30, but on the next point with Valentino at the net, a smash from Rhodes caught Valentino’s racket and rebounded over the net for the winner.

“We started falling apart and then we definitely brought it back together in the end,” Pham said. “We just had to get the adrenaline going, the motivation and the teamwork and hit the angles between the opponents.”

Valentino won his No. 3 singles match 6-4, 6-2 over John Craft.

At No. 1 singles, Sterling’s Brecken Peterson beat Marvel Zhang 6-2, 6-2.

“I was just trying to run him back and forth, wear him down, and then just finish it from there,” Peterson said.

“At the beginning, I was setting my own pace for my own shot, and I felt like when he went up to the net, I could control the ball well so he couldn’t return it,” Zhang said. “But what didn’t work out was toward the end I started to feel sluggish and play at his pace instead of my own pace, and when I noticed that, I started to play too many crazy shots. That didn’t end well for me.”

In doubles play, Peterson and Carter Ryan picked up a 6-0, 6-0 win over Koda Brininger and Griffin Moran. In the final game, Moran and Brininger were one point away from extending the match, up love-40 after a Ryan double-fault, but a slew of unforced errors from the Comets sparked a Sterling rally, and Peterson eventually hit a winner on match point.

Ryan also picked up a 6-0, 6-1 win at No. 6 singles over Kaden Welty.

Sterling’s Carter Morris beat Thomas Powers 6-2, 6-2 at No. 5 singles, then teamed up with Kayden Loos to beat Powers and Welty 6-1, 6-3 at No. 3 doubles.

Loos won the No. 4 singles match 6-4, 6-2 over Brininger.