Eagles singles too strong

COSTA MESA — Bradley Fisher may not like the strategy tried by the Costa Mesa High tennis team, which typically involves putting all the Mustangs’ best players in doubles.

But Fisher, the Estancia No. 1 singles player, was able to laugh about it after Thursday’s match. The senior, along with juniors Ely Zaidler and Danny O’Neil, breezed through their singles matches in Estancia’s 10-8 win at Costa Mesa High in the Orange Coast League opener for both schools.

“They just do these dumb strategies every time,” Fisher said. “They try to mix everything up. They try to ‘sheist’ us.”

The singles studs for the Eagles (6-2) were likely going to win their sets against their cross-town rival anyway, but probably not in such a dominant fashion. Fisher, Zaidler and O’Neil won eight of their nine sets by scores of 6-0, while the other was 6-1.

All three players were dominant, even when first-year Costa Mesa Coach Rick Gebhardt subbed in all-new singles players during the second go-round.

O’Neil said he knew something was up when Costa Mesa (0-3) paired what he considered its two best players, seniors Elliott Sneen and Victor Tran, at No. 3 doubles.

“I knew with Victor and Elliott out, I could kind of work on stuff I’ve been practicing, like coming up to the net,” O’Neil said. “It was good practice.”

But the Mustangs were nearly as dominant in doubles as the Eagles were in singles. Seniors Thien Nguyen and Daniel Dang swept at No. 2 doubles for Mesa, as did Sneen and Tran. Alex Adams and Oskar Koller, a freshman and sophomore respectively, won two of three matches at No. 1 doubles for the Mustangs.

Estancia, ranked No. 6 in the CIF Southern Section Division IV coaches’ poll, did get one win in doubles. It came in the first match of the day, when junior Rony Argueta and sophomore Kevin Thomas earned a 6-3 victory. The pair lost both of their following sets in close fashion, but it was that first win that became important as the match unfolded.

“We played pretty good in the first set,” Thomas said. “We started off up 3-0, then after that we sort of played even with them. The last two [sets], we didn’t play like we usually do.”

But they didn’t really need to shine all the time with Estancia’s strong singles play, which Thomas said was nice.

“You know that you don’t need to do it all,” he said.

Costa Mesa needed to sweep the last round of doubles matches and get an upset win at singles to try to forge a 9-9 tie, although Estancia would have still won on games. But Fisher, Zaidler and O’Neil quickly slammed the door on that idea.

Dang said the Mustangs stacked their doubles out of necessity. It helped them make Thursday’s match closer at least, compared to last year’s scores like 14-4 and 17-1.

“I remember [three] years ago, we won this way,” Dang said. “We got one [set] in singles, and the rest were doubles wins ... Obviously, Estancia’s singles are very strong. We had to focus more on doubles, but still their doubles are pretty strong. We need to work on our singles more.”

Estancia Coach Rachel de los Santos, in her seventh year, is well used to the tactics of the Mustangs.

“I knew they were going to do it,” she said. “But I knew even with stacking their doubles, we would sweep singles. When they take their good players and put them in doubles, there’s no way they could score off of Bradley, Danny and Ely. I was hoping for a few more doubles wins, but our teams are still sort of shifting around.”

Shifting, like the Costa Mesa players between singles and doubles.

Orange Coast League

Estancia 10, Costa Mesa 8

Singles – Fisher (Est) def. Cheskes-Harris, 6-0, def. (sub) Ta (CM), 6-0, def. (sub) Nguyen (CM), 6-0; Zaidler (Est) def. Truong (CM), 6-0, def. J. Dang (CM), 6-0, def. (sub) Huynh (CM), 6-0; O’Neil (Est) def. B. Dang (CM), 6-1, def. (sub) Minh (CM), 6-0, def. Ta, 6-0.

Doubles – Argueta-Thomas (Est) def. Adams-Koller, 6-3, lost to Nguyen-D. Dang, 4-6, lost to Tran-Sneed, 6-7 (2-7); Koreerat-Varma (Est) lost, 1-6, 1-6, 1-6; Ulrich-Oliver (Est) lost, 3-6, (sub) Ulrich-Golden (Est) lost, 2-6, (sub) Ulrich-Torres (Est) lost, 3-6.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.