Xiong, Boyd kings of the SVL

Yang Xiong joined some pretty good company Saturday when he defeated Mercy’s Michael Estrada 7-5, 6-3 in the Sacramento Valley League finals.

Xiong became just the third Honker ever to win back-to-back league singles championships. He joins Joe Spooner, who did it first in 1984 and 1985, and Pan Lee, who did it in 2002 and 2003.

Xiong won the league title his junior year and cruised through league play this year, leading the Honkers to their fourth straight Sacramento Valley League

championship. He opened singles play on Friday with a 6-1,6-1 win over Mercy’s Christian Mondragon and then edged teammate Leng Lee 6-1, 6-4 in the semifinals.

Xiong advanced straight to the finals when Mercy’s Sam Diaz did not show up on Saturday for the semifinals. He then topped Estrada in the finals after Estrada had beaten Willows’ Brandon Boyd 6-2, 6-2 in the other semifinal match.

The day was an historic one for the Honkers who had a school record six all-league players. Xiong, Boyd, Lee, Vadym Samoylov and Awaaz Patel all advanced to the quarterfinals to achieve all-league status, but the surprise was Garrick Jones, a sophomore who is the No. 9 seed on the Honker team.

Because the SVL allows all team members to participate in the SVL tournament, Jones was placed in an out-bracket match to start Friday’s play. He defeated his first opponent 8-6 and then knocked off the No. 1 seed from Colusa, 8-5, in the second round. Jones then edged Mercy’s No. 4 seed, Hector Rodriguez, 6-4, 6-0, to reach the quarterfinals. There, Jones lost to Mercy’s Sam Diaz 6-1, 6-4.

Boyd defeated Patel 6-0, 7-6 (7-3) to reach the semifinals while Samoylov lost to Estrada 6-2, 6-1.

In doubles, Xiong and Boyd combined to beat Estrada and Kevin Thibert 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the finals.

Boyd and Xiong won the first set and then led 4-1 in the second before dropping five straight games to lose the set 6-4. Mercy then took a 3-1 lead in the third game before Willows rallied for five straight games to capture the match.

Samoylov and Patel combined to finish in third place, winning 6-0, 6-3 over the Live Oak No. 1 team. The top three doubles teams advance to next week’s section finals while the top five singles players also advance. Samoylov will join the Boyd and Xiong in singles play at the section finals.

Xiong is the sixth singles champion from Willows, joining Spooner, Lee, Dustin Deason (1989), Josh Lund (1991), Marcel Charlier (1993) and Bee Chang (2006).
Boyd and Xiong are the 12th doubles team from Willows to win a league title.

The Honkers finished league play on Thursday with a pair of 9-0 wins over Live Oak and Colusa. Willows coach Kevin Harrigan split his squad into two teams and hosted Colusa and Live Oak on the same day and still managed to win the two matches without losing an individual or doubles match.

Willows finished the league season 9-0 and has a 14-2 overall record.