All three of the Aptos High Mariners’ tennis players in the Central Coast Section individual tournament lost in the first round on Tuesday at Imperial Courts Tennis Club in Aptos.
Kourosh Safari fell to the No. 1 seed, Issa Yoshida, of Westmont High, in the singles tournament, and the doubles team of Carter Bond and Jake Kluger lost to The Harker School’s Neil Bai and Randy Zhao.
Safari was able to hang around early, but couldn’t overcome the massive challenge against the eventual CCS runner-up. The two-time Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League singles champion fell 6-1, 6-1.
Bond and Kluger drew a more manageable opponent when the brackets were determined a few weeks ago, and caught another break when Homestead High’s duo of Kush Patel and Andrew Wong bowed out, forcing alternates Bai and Zhao to take their spot.
The SCCAL doubles champions pushed the match to three sets, but came up short in a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 loss.
The defeats end the Mariners’ season. As a team, Aptos won its second straight league championship and finished with a 13-3 overall record.
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HS BASEBALL
• Burlingame 14, Aptos 0 – No. 11 Aptos was knocked out of the CCS Division II playoffs in the first round by No. 6 Burlingame High on Wednesday.
Aptos, the second-place finisher in the SCCAL this season, was down 12-0 after the first inning and never recovered in its five-inning loss.
The Mariners tagged Burlingame’s junior starting pitcher Emilio Flores for three hits, but couldn’t get much else going on offense.
Seniors Curtis McMullen and Forrest Hays and junior Josh Barry recorded the team’s lone hits.
Aptos finishes the season with an 18-9 overall record and an 8-4 league standing. It will graduate eight players from its roster of 19: Ryan Fisher, Will Murphy, Luke Bruce, Eddie Munoz, David Reckers, Alsean Garcia, Hays and McMullen.
