Girls’ Tennis: Sailors humbled in opener
LOS ALAMITOS — Like many things in life, and high school athletics, it’s a matter of perspective.
Playing rival Los Alamitos twice during league can be a humbling thing for the Newport Harbor High girls’ tennis team.
But the Sailors chose to take Thursday afternoon’s 16-2 road loss in a Sunset League opener as a reminder of the progress that they need to make.
It’s big-picture stuff that Coach Kristen Case instills in her teams, and the girls seem to believe it, even after winning just one singles set and one doubles set against the two-time defending league champions.
“I actually enjoy playing [the Griffins] the first time around in league,” Case said. “I think it gives us a really good opportunity to play the best and get better. Now we have about four weeks to go take what we learned from today and kind of go back to the drawing board. By the time we see them again [Oct. 14 at home], hopefully we’re ready to go and we can turn some of those sets around. I think it’s better to start off against the best, because that’s what’s going to make you better and get you prepared for the other teams.”
Newport Harbor (4-4) won four straight league titles from 2008-11, but has finished second to Los Alamitos in league each of the last two years. The Sailors had chances in the first round against Los Al (1-2), ranked No. 7 in CIF Southern Section Division 1, on Thursday. Sailors junior Jenn Kingsley recorded a 6-4 win over Hailey Hairrell at No. 3 singles.
Three other sets were fairly close early, but they all went the hosts’ way. Karoline Pintar and Catt MacEachern outlasted Newport senior co-captain Annie LaGrandeur and Olivia Zehnder, 6-4, at No. 2 doubles. Defending Sunset League doubles champions Sydney Bott and Erika Cheng defeated Newport’s Kendall Cosenza and Anna Burke, 6-3, at No. 1 doubles in a rematch of last year’s league semifinal match.
And Los Al’s Caroleen Fararji earned a 6-3 win over Hannah Blower at No. 1 singles. What could have been a tight first round instead ended with a 5-1 Los Alamitos lead.
The Griffins then swept all six sets in the second round to clinch the match. The Sailors won just one more set, as senior co-captain Courtney Howarth and junior Elle Zielinski topped Pintar and MacEachern, 6-4, in the last set on court.
Fararji and last year’s Sunset League singles champion, fellow senior Jennifer Lu, earned singles sweeps for Los Alamitos. So did Bott and Cheng in doubles, as well as the No. 3 team of Aliya Alenikov and Hope Hairrell.
“They’re one of the teams that we play that hits harder balls,” LaGrandeur said. “They have a ton of pace on their balls, and I think that’s their edge that they have over us. I think we did a good job of handling that today. I think we were able to hang in there a little bit, but I think that’s definitely a specific that we should work on in order to be better when we see them next.”
It was a fun match for Los Al, which lost two preseason matches against University (ranked No. 2 in Division 1) and Mira Costa (No. 6). The Griffins also have a key nonleague home match against Corona del Mar on Wednesday.
“It was nice to get a little confidence going today,” Los Alamitos Coach Kevin Garrett said. “I don’t think we did anything spectacular or anything disastrous. Kind of our goal is to be steady, and I thought we were steady and consistent.”
But the Sailors did not appear overly crushed after the loss. They sat on an adjacent court, loudly cheering for Howarth and Zielinski in their match-ending victory.
“This year, I think we’ve all done better at just taking the losses as learning experiences,” LaGrandeur said. “We’re not getting defeated at all. We’ve bounced back after every loss, just because we come out knowing what we need to work on in practice. I think we work hard on that, and it shows out on the courts for our next match. We bounce back.”
The league appears more difficult this year with the emergence of Fountain Valley, which Garrett said has two key freshmen players. And Edison always seems to play Newport Harbor tough.
Case said that the goal remains a league title, despite the score of Thursday’s match. And Howarth said she had little doubt that the Sailors would indeed bounce back.
“At practice [Friday], we’re all going to be on it and ready to work and compete harder next time,” Howarth said. “One thing I completely respect about my team is that we don’t get defeated, we don’t get down. It’s all resilience. So I think this is just going to propel us to work harder the next few weeks. It’s our senior year; we’re going to continue to work it. We have big expectations for league.
“It’s huge for us to not get too heady with wins and just start cruising. Coming out and playing a tough team like Los Al, I think it’s really setting us up well for league.”
