Eagles, Schalick, Woodstown all play in Thursday’s sectional tournament Round of 16
PENNSVILLE — They’ve only known each other since the start of tennis season. They’ve only been paired as Pennsville’s No. 2 doubles team for about a week. But Mariangela Rangel and Yasary Clemente Brito have found the formula to create some tennis magic together.
The recently paired tandem won a straight set victory Wednesday to clinch the Eagles’ 4-1 victory over Dayton in the play-in round of the South Jersey Group 1 Tournament. They defeated Nilaja Awogboro-Clark and Payten Santiago, 6-4, 6-4.
It was only the tandem’s fifth match together; they’re 4-1. They’ve played together at No. 2 doubles in four straight matches since Sept. 22, winning three of them.
“We’ve been trying to mix our doubles combinations up looking for chemistry between the girls,” Pennsville head coach Brynn Buechler said after claiming her first sectional tournament victory as a head coach. “We’ve had a few practices where we have the girls rotating and noticed that Yas and Mariangela communicate with each other and their personalities really gel.
“They feed off each other’s energy and it was great to see them get the win today to clinch the match for us.”
The two partners credit their culture and style of play as the secrets to their success.
“I feel it works because we both speak Spanish and we understand,” said Rangel, a sophomore playing her first year of tennis. “And she’s really good in the back and I’m really good up at the net, so I’m not surprised how good we’ve been playing together.”
“They have such an energy between them,” assistant coach Dallas Dilks said. “Really upbeat. Picking each other up. And then it was just can we get their games better from the time they started playing together and they both stepped up. Today was great. They hustled around, they put extra balls in, their confidence was so high. This is what we’ve been wanting all year and they stepped up to the plate.”
Both of their sets on the far end of the courts were tight. Once they got the lead in the second set they never lost it. The Dayton duo tied the set at 2-2 and 4-4. The Pennsville pair held serve to take the lead 5-4, then broke the Bulldogs’ serve to send the 10th-seeded Eagles (9-3) to the next round.
They now travel to seventh-seeded Woodbridge Magnet Thursday for the Round of 16. This year’s tournament was compressed into North and South sectionals with 24 teams in each. The top eight seeds drew byes.
“I think we did a really good job,” Clemente Brito said. “We started off really strong. We got a little down, but we didn’t give up. We just kept going and we won. We came in with positive minds and we knew if we wanted to win we can’t get mad if we lose a point. We just came to win and we just had to get the job done.”
The Eagles swept the three singles matches for their other points. Naomi Hess and Jaisley Weber won in straight sets in advance of Rangel and Clemente Brito’s clinching win, then No. 1 singles Graillyn Weber won a 10-5 third-set tiebreaker for the final margin.
PENNSVILLE 4, DAYTON 1
Graillyn Weber (PV) def. Natasha Perianayagam, 6-3, 2-6, 10-5
Naomi Hess (PV) def. Yve Lieberman, 6-0, 6-0
Jaisley Weber (PV) def. Sharlyn Dubey, 6-1, 6-0
Jaclyn Wang-Gwenyth Pachtman (D) def. Aubrey Hall-Juliana Thomas, 6-1, 6-3
Mariangela Rangel-Yasary Clemente Brito (PV) def. Payten Santiago-Nilaja Awogboro-Clark, 6-4, 6-4
Records: Pennsville 9-3, Dayton 1-9.
SOUTH JERSEY GROUP 1 TOURNAMENT
Thursday’s first-round matchups
Bernards at Pitman, 3:30 p.m.
Roselle Park at Middlesex, 3:30 p.m.
South River at Gateway, 3:30 p.m.
Schalick at Haddon Twp., 3 p.m.
Lower Cape May at Woodstown, 3 p.m.
Edison Magnet at Metuchen, 3:30 p.m.
Pennsville at Woodbridge Magnet, 3:30 p.m.
Shore at New Providence, 3 p.m.