The Texas Ranchers came into Sunday with their backs against the wall, but they rose to the occasion in their first match of the day.

The squad featuring Christian Alshon, Etta Wright, Tina Pisnik, and Quang Duong evened their quarterfinal series against the DC Pickleball Team by way of a 3-1 regulation victory.

Like they did in the first match, Wright/Pisnik earned the women’s doubles point for Texas over DC’s Rachel Rohrabacher/Vivian Glozman.

In men’s doubles, Alshon/Duong redeemed their prior defeat to James Ignatowich/Dekel Bar with a 25-20 triumph to give Texas a 2-0 advantage going into mixed doubles.

Like it was in Saturday’s contest, the mixed bout between Duong/Pisnik and Bar/Glozman was the game of the match.

After both tandems had saved a combined nine game points between them, Bar/Glozman took the win 34-32 in one of the wildest games of the season.

That win got DC on the board, but Alshon/Wright stopped the comeback attempt with a 25-23 victory over Ignatowich/Rohrabacher to even the series and extend Texas' season.

For as important as that mixed doubles win was for Texas to close out the second match, it might be even more important for them going into Match 3: it’s their first mixed doubles victory over DC in the eight games they’ve played this season.

The Ranchers will look to carry that momentum into the deciding match, which is set to begin after the Dallas Flash take on the New York Hustlers later Sunday afternoon.