Summerville, Sonora tennis stars bow out in league semifinals

Mendezona’s run ends at the racket of an old foe

With the graduation of reigning Mother Lode League singles champ — Summerville’s Kiana Thomas — last spring, the league landscape was wide open for the first time in years. 

But stepping into Thomas’ big shoes this season was senior Elise Mendezona, who became the Bears’ No. 1 player this season and fared well against the league’s top players. 

After a first-round bye, she looked sharp in a quarterfinal matchup with Sonora’s Ava Holland. The Wildcats had four players in the tournament apart from Holland, including Summer Hankins, Jonathan Korte and Milan Kragic.

The senior blasted forehand shots over the net, shifting the mobile Holland back and forth along the baseline all match. 

She eventually prevailed 8-2 over Holland, setting up a semifinal matchup with Argonaut No. 2 Lily Carson. The pair had history, having faced off in a number of No. 2 singles matches in league play over the past two years before Mendezona’s elevation to No. 1 play this year. 

Carson had always gotten the better of Mendezona, but with improved groundstroke power giving Mendezona a more potent offensive arsenal this season, the senior said her approach to the match was to be on the attack. 

“In past games, I have always really felt like I was the defensive player — not even necessarily by choice, just because I felt like I really lacked ability,” Mendezona said. “This year, I was like, ‘You know what, Elise, let’s make it a little bit more voluntary. Let’s really try to up your game a bit.’”

Impressive mobility and a long wingspan allowed Carson to counter Mendezona effectively, however, and the Bears ace found her attacking mindset leading to uncharacteristic errors as she aimed for winning shots. 

She dropped the first set 6-2 to Carson, but battled back hard in the second. Mendezona took a 2-0 lead thanks to an early break, then the pair traded breaks with two wins at a time.

After things were knotted at 4-4, Mendezona held serve and put herself in position to win with a break as she led 5-4, but Carson held her off, tying it up 5-5 and then winning the next two sets to defeat Mendezona 6-2, 7-5. 

“I am grateful I got this far, to be honest,” Mendezona said. “I was kind of surprised — when they said I was seeded second in the league finals, I was like, ‘No way.’

“I told myself if I lost, I would lose with no regrets because she is an amazing player. I felt like if I played my heart out and did the best I could, I could walk away with a smile on my face and be happy about it.”

Devore’s impenetrable defense frustrates Sonora’s Kragic

The boys bracket of the MLL tourney was chock full of fun storylines, with a trio of players vying for the outright league title. 

Sonora exchange student Milan Kragic upset league favorite Myles Newton of Amador earlier in the season, picking up a regular-season win in their first meeting. Meanwhile, Summerville sophomore Carter Webb defeated Kragic only two days prior in a third-set tiebreaker. 

Webb, fresh off the big win, said he was careful to not come into the league tourney with more confidence than he ought to. 

“It made me more confident, but at the same time you can’t be too confident, because then you getting cocky and cockiness is a bad thing in sports in my opinion,” Webb said. “You can take in the win, but just think about what you are going to do in the future and how you won.”

The Bears’ No. 1 cruised through his first-round matchup with Calaveras’ Curtis Rios, winning easily, 8-1, in the first-to-eight format that characterizes the first two rounds of the league tournament. 

But because he missed some regular season playing time due to illness, Webb missed out on a first-round bye and had to face Kragic again in the quarterfinals. 

Things fell apart for Webb there, as his play was marred by uncharacteristic errors and mishits that allowed a steady Kragic to jump out to a 5-0 lead. 

“I would just really say my topspin and forehand were really off. I kept hitting it over — the topspin wasn’t top-spinning,” Webb said. “He was messing up a lot the (last) time I was playing him, but today, he was just on it.

“My game was a little bit off, obviously. I feel confident with my swings, even if they go out, because if you get unconfident then that is how you start really doing bad.”

Kragic, meanwhile, looked in control as he put Webb in motion, advanced to the net and put away winner after winner, eventually nabbing the 8-1 victory.

“Once it gets to a tiebreaker, that is anyone’s game,” Sonora tennis head coach Sam Segerstrom said. “I was proud of Milan, because he just put the pedal to the metal in that first set, went up 5-0 and then cruised to the victory. I was expecting that to be a tighter match, but Milan played very well — we could tell he brought it today.”

A disappointed Webb kept his head up after the loss, vowing to continue his rapid improvement this offseason and continue to ascend the MLL ladder. 

“Over the summer and over my offseason, I just kept putting in the work and putting in the work,” Webb said. “I am just going to keep getting better by senior year. My first serve will be my second by the time I am done, and these simple errors that I am doing right won’t even be a thing.”

The quarterfinals also saw Webb’s teammate, Mason Stokes, exit the tournament in an 8-3 loss to Bret Harte’s Jonathan Carter after he defeated Calaveras’ Ryan Osborn handily, 8-1, in the first round. 

Kragic’s quarterfinal win set him up to face Amador No. 2 Carter Devore in the semifinals, where Devore leapt out to the lead after taking the competitive first set 6-4. 

Devore’s defensive play style, full of high-arcing lobs and difficult gets along the baseline, forced Kragic to take risks and clearly frustrated the Wildcats star as the match went on. 

“(It was a) tough matchup for Milan, because that guy gives him no pace and I think Milan likes pace,” Segerstrom said. “Credit to that guy — that is how he plays. It is an uglier style of play, but it is very hard to beat because you have to consistently hit winners. If you watched, every point that Milan got, he earned.”

Down 3-5 in the second set, things were looking grim for Kragic as he attempted to counter Devore’s defensive play by attacking at the net off of hard-hit shots. He broke back to make it 5-4 Devore, then won in four points, punctuated by an ace, to tie things up at 5-5. 

The pair each held serve for the next two games, forcing a tiebreaker at 6-6. 

Rally length only grew from that point on, with tiebreaker points going to 20, 30, even 40 hits back and forth across the net. Kragic, playing to the crowd, expressed his boredom with his opponent’s deliberate play by sounding out the vowels with each hit, “ah, eeh, ay, oh, ooh.” 

“I think my biggest problem is that I am being a showman,” he said. “Whenever I play, I like to interact with the crowd, everybody outside — I really enjoy that, being in the spotlight. I think that distracts me, sometimes.

“This game was just stamina. There was nothing exciting about this game, truly nothing. The only thing was to fight back.”

Kragic held his biggest lead of the tiebreaker at 4-2 after a pair of poorly struck balls by Devore, but the Buffalo battled back to retake the lead and set up match point, up 6-5. Kragic fended off three match points, but finally erred with a shot into the net to give Devore the 10-8 victory and a trip to the finals. 

Both Kragic and Segerstrom credited his opponent for using the right strategy to get him off his game.

“He won, at the end of the day, and he had the right tactic for me,” Kragic said. 

“We were just talking about staying aggressive, using his legs and trying to finish more balls at the net, and that was very hard to do against this guy because he was very quick,” Segerstrom added. “There were a few shots that definitely would have been winners against other players that he tracked down.”

While frustrated with the loss, Kragic said that for him, “it’s not time yet,” and he would look to learn from the experience and play well at the upcoming doubles tournament Saturday. 

“I love tennis, and I enjoy playing it every freaking day,” Kragic said. “I hope I can play some doubles in the doubles tournament and win there.”

Kragic, Mendezona and the rest of the Wildcats will all be eligible to play in the league doubles finals Saturday at Bret Harte High School, with a chance to advance to the section tournament. 

Contact Dominic Massimino at dmassimino@uniondemocrat.com or (209) 588-4526. Follow him on Twitter at @DominicUDSports