Munster junior Joe Webster has the opportunity on Wednesday to win his third straight individual regional title against Crown Point.

A three-time singles sectional champion — twice at No. 3 and once at No. 1— Webster expects a tough challenge from Crown Point’s Armando Bracco in the Munster Regional championship match at No. 3 singles.

Bracco and the Bulldogs advanced to the title match with their 5-0 win over Bishop Noll in Tuesday’s semifinals, while Webster and the Mustangs blanked Merrillville 5-0.

Webster, who cruised to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Merrillville’s Noah Terpstra, will be trying to lead Munster to a fourth straight regional team title and the program’s 35th regional championship overall.

“We expect Crown Point to give us a tough match,” Webster said. “Everyone on this team expects to go out and win. We’re going to be out there and give it our all.”

Webster said Munster coach Patrick Spohr has prepared the team to win the match.

“We don’t want to get too excited and make mistakes,” Webster said. “We want to have our heads in the match and do it. I think we have a good chance of advancing down to state this year, but we can’t look into the future too much. We just have to focus on the match ahead.

“We’re all good at taking it point by point. Our eyes aren’t going to be too big. We’ve been to regionals before. We have to be confident, but careful.”

The Mustangs (17-2) cruised against Merrillville.

Munster No. 1 singles player Jack Gauderman played well in beating the Pirates’ Justin Jackson 6-2, 6-2, while No. 2 Payton Specht blanked Cameron Louthan 6-0, 6-0.

At No. 1 doubles, the tandem of Zach Schmidt and Frank Wolf improved to 19-0 with their 6-1, 6-0 win over the Pirates’ Justin Villanueva and Anthony Williamson.

Munster’s second doubles of DJ Fesko and Kathir Venkat won 6-1, 6-3 over Joshua Raddatz and Iyan Sahagun.

“There was no difficulty for us, it was straightforward,” Schmidt said. “It was just basics, fundamentals. You don’t want to build any bad habits.”

Wolf said: “We’re just trying to get through (Wednesday) and get a couple of good days of practice in before (the Culver Academies Semistate) Saturday.”

While Spohr expects a tough title match with Crown Point (15-1), he liked what he saw in the semifinals.

“Our two doubles weren’t playing up to their level,” he said. “We don’t want to pick up bad habits moving forward, like standing still, not making adjustments, and not closing out at the net, because moving forward, we’re only going to face tougher competition.”

Spohr expects the title match to be a singles showdown.

“I was happy with the way our singles played in general, but (Wednesday) is going to be a dogfight at singles,” he said. “Crown Point will come out wanting it, while we have to come out and prove it.”

John O’Malley is a freelancer.