GAMES
RANKINGS
Whataburger Team of the Week: Memorial Tennis Captures Third State Championship
The Mustangs finish the fall 18-1. The lone blemish? A season-opening loss to Westwood — a team Memorial would not see again until the state semifinals. Eighteen straight wins later, head coach Brian Mandell and assistant J.P. Bonilla had their revenge and a spot in the final.
Doubles set the tone
Memorial came out of the doubles round with a 4-3 lead, and it was the girls who did the heavy lifting. Lucy Chung and Katherine Varady opened with a 6-3, 6-4 win at the top line. Zoe Smith and Addison Womac rolled 6-1, 6-0, and Grace Martin and Celeste Hoang were nearly as dominant at 6-0, 6-1. On the boys' side, Yosef Elyashkevich and Nicholas Du handled Carroll's Rushil Rajpal and Francesco Poggi 6-4, 6-2.
Girls singles slam the door, boys singles finish it
The Memorial girls were close to untouchable in singles. Chung won 6-3, 6-3. Martin won 6-3, 6-2. Smith won 6-0, 6-3. Womac closed hers out 6-4, 6-2. Four more points, and the Mustangs were on the doorstep.
The clinching points came the hard way. Joowon Kim dropped his first set 4-6, then stormed back 6-2 and took the match tiebreaker 10-3. Aiden Yan did the same — down 3-6, back 6-3, and a 10-6 tiebreaker that gave Memorial its 10th point and the championship.
The road to San Antonio
The Mustangs did not drop a single match in the first three rounds of the playoffs, blanking Pasadena Dobie 19-0, Barbers Hill 11-0 and Pearland Dawson 10-0. They outlasted Austin Vandegrift 10-7 in the regional semifinal, then beat Fort Bend Clements 10-5 for the regional title and a return trip to state.
In San Antonio, the bracket was loaded. Westwood came in 19-0. The Woodlands, the defending 6A champion, was 16-0 before Southlake Carroll took the Highlanders down 10-8 in the other semifinal. Carroll arrived in the final at 20-1. Memorial beat two of them in two days.
Three state titles in a decade. Eighteen wins in a row. A roster that swept the girls' side of the final and came from behind twice on the boys' side to close it out. In Spring Branch, the Mustangs have built a tennis dynasty — and this group just added the biggest trophy yet.
Program notes: Memorial's three team tennis state championships (2017, 2019, 2026) all came under the UIL's top classification. The 2026 title is the first under coach Brian Mandell.
