Long Beach Poly\u2019s Peter You and Lakewood\u2019s Ceci Fonseca each captured Moore League singles titles on Monday at Ron Palmer Pavilion, capping off redemption runs after both fell short in last year\u2019s finals.<\/p>\n
You, the boys\u2019 No. 1 seed, defeated Lakewood\u2019s Adrian Perez 21-5, 23-21 in the boys\u2019 championship match to secure his first league title after finishing second a year ago.<\/p>\n
Fonseca was dominant on the girls\u2019 side, not dropping a set all day as she claimed the title in her senior season, also bouncing back from a runner-up finish last year.<\/p>\n
You cruised through the early rounds before facing his toughest test in the semifinals against Poly teammate Zaheen Chowhury. Chowhury pushed him to the brink in the opening set before You escaped with a 26-24 win. He then took control in the second set, winning 21-12 to advance to the final.<\/p>\n
Chowhury went on to place third, defeating Cabrillo\u2019s Jomari Pedenis in the consolation match.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels pretty good,\u201d You said. \u201cI put in the work and dedication all the time, sitting at home watching YouTube videos \u2014 those 20-minute matches \u2014 and just knowing that I did all of that and managed to win this game feels pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
You credited his development to competing against strong competition outside the Moore League.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great,\u201d You said. \u201cMy experiences against other schools like Cerritos and Fairmont Prep helped me a lot because it opened my eyes to how many good players exist outside our league. It motivates me more to put in that extra time, just for the love of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the girls\u2019 side, Fonseca advanced to the final after defeating teammate Natalie Maravilla in the semifinals, punching her ticket back to the championship match. Jordan\u2019s Lizzy Mendoza claimed third place by beating Maravilla in the consolation match.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely difficult, but I knew I wanted to end on a good note, being my senior year and knowing how close I was last year,\u201d Fonseca said. \u201cSo I started training every day. My partner, Day, really helped me get to this point where I\u2019m holding gold today. I had to put in a lot of work and spend money on trips to practice, but it was all worth it in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fonseca said she entered the tournament confident but still had to manage the pressure of the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the offseason, I was definitely confident I was going to win gold, but as I played, the scores were really close, and I started anticipating this moment more,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t that nervous at first, but once I got here, the nerves were a lot \u2013 the crowd, the noise, everything. I can\u2019t lie and say I wasn\u2019t nervous, because I definitely was. But I had to calm down, breathe and get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore League postseason play continues this week with the doubles tournament on Wednesday and mixed doubles on Thursday at Long Beach Poly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach Poly\u2019s Peter You and Lakewood\u2019s Ceci Fonseca each captured Moore League singles titles on Monday at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-289277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}