Due to it raining throughout last week, Orestimba High School’s tennis team had to cancel two planned matches, resulting in them playing one match last week.
In what was their only match last week, Orestimba won convincingly against Ripon High School, 6-3.
Throughout the match, the Warriors dominated in both boys' and girls' singles as they won all their matches. Chris Alvarado was in control during his singles match against Ripon’s Tate Douglas, winning 6-1, 6-3. Orestimba was granted an automatic win for another boys’ singles as one of Ripon's players, who was initially supposed to compete against Colton Reeves couldn’t attend Tuesday’s match.
Orestimba’s momentum carried into the girls’ singles matches. To begin her singles, Mirella Fregoso won a close opening set against Brookelyn Betschart, 7-5. She followed up her performance in the following set, winning 6-3. Similarly to Fregoso, Sofiah Ramirez won a tight opening set against Lily Meyer, 7-5. Ramirez carried her momentum into the second set where she won 6-0, giving Orestimba a 4-0 lead.
“They’re playing against people who have more years of experience than them,” said head coach Nolan Osborn about the two returners. “But even then, they still come out on top. They still perform, pretty much they work hard every day.”
In doubles, however, it was the opposite for Orestimba as Ripon dominated the doubles matches by going 3-1.
Ripon’s duo of Max Ferral and Emilo Machado Perez began their doubles match with a tightly contested open set against Orestimba’s Kevin Rodriguez and Ernesto Chavez, winning the set, 7-6. They followed it up with a 6-4 win to cut their deficit to 4-1.
Orestimba responded in boys’ doubles as Jose Ramirez and Nabeel Ali won both sets against Ripon’s John Yeung and Nate Denhart, 6-2, 6-3.
Ripon’s girls concluded the duration of doubles matches with back-to-back wins. Sophie Douglas and Alyssa Lan won both their sets against Mallory Solano and Giselle Marquez, 6-3, 7-6. Molly Berger and Abby Douglas concluded the doubles matches for Ripon against Fernanda Alvarado and Alejandra Franco, 6-0, 6-3.
To conclude their only match last week, Orestimba’s Ashlynn Bell and Aaron Gallardo won their mixed doubles against Emiley Wang and David Rodriguez, 6-3, 6-0.
After their match against Ripon, Orestimba was set to travel to Ripon Christian High School and Millennium High School in Tracy last week. Due to rain in the respective cities they planned to travel to, Orestimba had to cancel those matches and reschedule them for a later date.
This makes it the third time this season that Orestimba had to cancel a match.
Luckily for Osborn and the rest of the team, the weather forecast is expected to be clear when they host Hughson High School on Tuesday. The match will begin at 3:30 p.m.
Navtej Hundal is a freelance journalist in Stanislaus County.
