Coronado's Uraga, El Paso High's Ocaranza headed to state tennis tourney
El Paso High junior Daniela Ocaranza took a big step forward in her high school career last week, earning a spot in the Class 5A state tournament in San Antonio.
Now with the added confidence, she looks to bring home a state title.
Ocaranza defeated Wylie's Kate Delgado in a regional playback match after losing earlier in the day in the Region I-5A title match. After losing the first set, 6-2, Ocaranza won the last two sets, 6-2, 6-2, to advance to state. This was Ocaranza's third trip to the regional tournament.
"It was an amazing feeling to win that match and get to state," Ocaranza said. "It was tough, it was a battle. I had great support from my teammates and coaches. I lost that first set in the playback, but settled down and played well the rest of the way. Getting to state was a goal of mine this year."
Ocaranza will play Austin LASA's Sanwi Sarode in the quarterfinals at 8 a.m. CDT Tuesday at the Northside Tennis Center in San Antonio. If she wins, she'll play the winner of Liberty Hill's India Young and Frisco Wakeland's Ella Wertz at 2 p.m. CDT on Tuesday. The other quarterfinal matchups feature Maadhvi Bhojani of Friendswood against Meghna Arun Kumar of Argyle and Kritika Voruganti of Frisco Centennial against Avi Gallegos of Boerne Champion.
The state title match is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"It's a great opportunity to be at state," Ocaranza said. "I feel like I've improved as the season has gone on. It'll be my first time at state and I just have to play my best, stay focused and give it my best effort."
Said Tigers coach Paul Uranga: "Daniela did a great job of coming back from the loss and the first game loss in the playback. She got more aggressive and played with confidence. It's great to see her get this opportunity at state."
Coronado's Ian Uraga headed to state again
For the second straight year Coronado's Ian Uraga is headed to the Class 6A state tournament. He'll play at 8:15 a.m. CDT on Tuesday in a quarterfinal matchup against Bridgeland's Praneet Tulluri at the Northside Tennis Center. If Uraga wins, he'll play either Round Rock's Marko Mesarovic or Katy Seven Lakes's Allan Xu at 3:15 p.m. in the semifinal. The other quarterfinals are Juno Pethe of Conroe Woodlands College Park vs. Blake Anderson of Prosper Rock Hill and Ethan Everk of Katy Paetow and Lathan Skrobarcek of Northside Harlan.
The state championship match is at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Uraga was the state-runner up in 2022 and reached this year's state tourney by defeating Caleb Folse of Keller, 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 in a playback match at the Courts of McKinney in McKinney in the Region I-6A tourney.
More: El Paso college signings Americas' Stephen Sepulveda has made his commitment, plus a look at El Paso pledges
Felix F. Chavez can be reached at fchavez@elpasotimes.com; @Fchavezeptimes on Twitter
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Coronado's Uraga, El Paso High's Ocaranza to play in UIL state tennis
