Girls’ Tennis: Sailors fall to Barons, but win higher league seed

The match was intense, with almost a CIF playoffs type of atmosphere.

In reality, Monday’s match was just the Sunset League finale. Both the Newport Harbor High girls’ tennis team and visiting Fountain Valley had already wrapped up CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoff berths before the match began.

After another close match, both teams left feeling good about themselves.

Fountain Valley was happy because it earned a 9-9 (81-79 on games) win, and finished tied with the Sailors for second place in league.

Newport Harbor (12-6, 7-3 in league) was happy because it still earned the league’s second-place designation into the Division 1 playoffs, which begin next week. Fountain Valley (13-6, 7-3) will take the third-place designation. The teams split their league meetings, but Newport Harbor’s 9-9 (72-65 on games) margin on Oct. 9 was larger than Monday’s result, so Newport won the tiebreaker.

“Once we realized that first place wasn’t a reachable goal, we aimed for that second spot,” Newport Harbor senior co-captain Annie LaGrandeur said. “Nothing was going to stop us from that. We worked our butts off to get that … yeah, we didn’t end our fairy tale ending, beating them twice, but we still achieved our goal. We still got what we wanted. Nobody should hang their heads today. We still clinched second place, whether we did it with a win or we did it with a loss.”

Kendall Cosenza and Anna Burke swept in doubles for Newport Harbor, as they had in the teams’ first meeting. But Fountain Valley won two more doubles sets this time around. Only LaGrandeur and partner Olivia Zehnder were able to win another doubles set, 6-3, over Fountain Valley’s Vivian Ly and Ruth Nguyen.

The Fountain Valley teams of Clarissa Htay and Katie Ho, as well as Vikki Nguyen and Giao Pham, each won twice. With Newport Harbor up 9-8 and the teams tied 74-74 on games, Nguyen and Pham clinched the match at the end. They earned a 7-5 win over LaGrandeur and Zehnder, rallying to take the last three games.

“It could have gone either way, and we’re just happy that we won by two games,” Fountain Valley Coach Harshul Patel said. “This is amazing for us. From a tennis point of view, Fountain Valley, they don’t even do lessons until they come into high school. Half of my team here, they’ve been working for like two years starting in JV matches. So, for us, it’s an achievement.

“[The Sailors] were really ready to beat us at home. They always play better at home; everybody knows that. So for us to come and take this win, it’s an achievement for us.”

The Sailors were up 7-5 after two rounds, following a big 6-4 victory by junior No. 1 singles player Jenn Kingsley over Fountain Valley freshman Katherine Nguyen. Nguyen and fellow freshman Hanh Pham had each swept in the teams’ first meeting, but on Monday they each lost once.

Newport freshman Nicole Knickerbocker shocked Pham in the first round, earning a 6-4 victory and handing Pham her first loss of the season. Her flat ball with a lot of pace seemed to bother Pham.

“I just stuck with my game, and I was just playing really consistently,” Knickerbocker said. “I felt good about all my shots.”

Newport took a 9-6 lead in the final round when Hannah Blower topped Fountain Valley’s Tia Wheelock and Cosenza and Burke completed their doubles sweep, over Ly and Nguyen. But the Barons won each of the last three sets on court, earning enough games to secure the victory.

Kingsley and Knickerbocker each won two singles sets for the Sailors.

“They played so confidently and believed in themselves out there,” Newport Harbor Coach Kristen Case said. “They played some incredible tennis, and I was very impressed with their mental toughness.”

The same applied to all of the members of her team, she said.

“I’m so proud of the girls for how they played today and how they battled it out,” Case said. “It really is a privilege to coach this group, because they’re probably one of the most determined, mentally strong and passionate groups that we’ve had. To me, they’re all winners. I just couldn’t be more proud of them.”

Newport Harbor next competes at the Sunset League individuals tournament, beginning Wednesday at 1 p.m. at Huntington Beach High.