TENNIS: Bulldogs win 2 Region III crowns
Published 8:41 pm Thursday, April 18, 2019
Jorge Lopez never had a player win a region singles championship or two entries win region crowns in the same tournament in 29 years coaching tennis at Nederland — until Thursday.
Junior Brandon Do completed a dominant run through the UIL 5A Region III boys singles bracket at the Blythe Calfee Tennis Center in Willis by beating Wilson Nguyen of Pflugerville Connally, 6-0, 6-2. Do had only lost five games all tournament.
It was his dominant play, Lopez said, that made Do (25-1) such an attraction in Willis.
“He made a lot of fans,” Lopez said, citing Do’s power hitting. “Everywhere he went, people stopped to watch him and even got autographs from him. I really think he’ll be in the finals of the state.”
Do’s sister is joining a Nederland face that’s familiar to state in Jayci Wong.
Freshman Megan Do and senior Wong paired to win the girls doubles championship, beating Quinn Radtke and Maura Mitchell of Friendswood 6-2, 6-3. This is the first Region III title of any kind for Wong, who was a singles runner-up in 2016 and 2017 and narrowly missed a third trip last year as the third-place finisher.
No singles player from Nederland had made it to the state tournament since region runner-up Jacob Vernon in 1994. But Brandon Do made his journey look easy, beating Eastview’s Blake Thurman, A&M Consolidated’s Filip Malik, Travis Mistry of Lamar Consolidated and Nguyen each in straight sets.
Zach Miller of Georgetown beat Dalton Broussard of Port Neches-Groves in the first round.
The Wong-Do duo beat Linh Van and Maddie Coburn of Friendswood and Sasha Koustova and Mia Maren of College Station in straight sets before enduring a three-set contest against Elizabeth Dietlein and Kenna Schreiber of Georgetown. Wong and Do won 6-0, 6-7(5), 6-2 to advance to the final.
Lauren Springer of Montgomery beat Virginia Thome of PNG in the first round of girls singles, and Derek Young and Inaki Martinez of Montgomery beat Tereul Jimenez and Joshua Tran of Nederland in the first round of boys doubles.
The state meet is May 16-17 at Texas A&M University.
— I.C. Murrell
About I.C. Murrell
I.C. Murrell was promoted to editor of The News, effective Oct. 14, 2019. He previously served as sports editor since August 2015 and has won or shared eight first-place awards from state newspaper associations and corporations. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, grew up mostly in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
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