Walpole Boy's Tennis has moved on to the semi finals of the Division 2 South playoffs. This comes after the team received a bye in the preliminary round of the playoffs and then defeated Sandwich on Tuesday, June 4, in the first round. Following the victory against Sandwich, the team faced Ashland on June 6 in the quarter finals and won all five matches to move on to face Duxbury in the semi finals.
“I thought overall we played pretty well, we have to work on our doubles game, singles we played exceptionally well. But overall as a team I thought we played pretty well,” Coach Shawn Gough said about the team's performance against Sandwich.
Walpole was able to win four out of their five matches against Sandwich. In the singles matches, freshman Siddharth Vandrangi won both of his sets with a 6-1 score in each. In the second spot in singles, junior captain, Varun Mandulapali, won in 2 sets by a score of 6-0 and 6-2 in each sets. Finally to sweep the singles matches, freshman Jake Lowenstein took down his opponent in 2 sets.
"I thought all of the singles did really well. We all won pretty comfortably," Mandulapali said.
In the doubles matches junior, Dan Colbert, and senior captain Jack Moses, took down their opponent in two sets. In the second doubles match, sophomore Joe Colbert and junior Nathan Schnaider lost in 2 sets 6-4 and 6-1. Although the team went one for two in doubles, they are confident that it can change.
"I was disappointed that we weren't able to win, but it leaves room for us to improve in the next round," Joe Colbert said.
Against Ashland, in the first singles match, Vandrangi was able to win his match in two sets. In the second singles match Mandulapali was also able to defeat his opponent in two sets. In the final singles match, Lowenstein was also able to pull off a victory in a tie breaking set.
In the doubles matches Colbert and Moses beat their opponents easily in two sets. In the second doubles match Colbert and Schnaider were able to bounce back from their prior loss to win 7-5 in each set.
"I was really happy that we were able to pull off a victory this match, we really improved from the match against Sandwich," Joe Colbert said.
The team will look to continue their season as they take on Duxbury in Duxbury on Tuesday, June 11.