Sage hardly down under

NEWPORT BEACH — There were no fist pumps with the set victories or frowns with the losses for the Sage Hill School girls’ tennis team, which topped its opponent, 10-8, Tuesday at the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club.

The Lightning defeated the Peninsula School from Melbourne, Australia, but it was more about a cultural experience than backhands or rallies.

“It’s really cool having anybody from a different country come over to our school,” Sage Hill doubles player Alle Hsu said. “It’s the whole other side of the world. But I guess tennis is really an international sport.”

Peninsula Coach Amanda Stoiss said the match was part of a two-week vacation for the school, which will also be traveling to San Diego and San Francisco to play other matches — and also to go site seeing. The trip was set in motion about two years ago, when she said she started researching tennis teams to play in the Southern California area.

“A friend of mine in Sydney said Sage Hill was in a great area and a great tennis team,” Stoiss said. “So he contacted [Sage Hill] Coach [A.G. Longoria] and he said, ‘We’d love to have you.’ We wanted to come to Southern California for the whole experience. We’re doing Disneyland and Universal Studios, all the tourist things.”

Peninsula brought its junior varsity team. The varsity players were not able to attend due to school testing.

The team received a tour of Sage Hill School on Monday, then all 30 Peninsula players — the boys’ team also came on the trip — spent the night at the home of a Sage Hill player on Monday night.

Sage Hill singles player Sarah Choi said her family hosted two Peninsula girls’ tennis players.

“It was a lot of fun,” Choi said. “We went to the Irvine Spectrum, and we were just hanging out. They were taking everything in. They were just so polite.”

Stoiss said her players were having a great time.

“They can’t believe the friendships they’ve just made in one night,” Stoiss said.

Longoria was able to play all of the Lightning’s varsity and junior varsity players on Tuesday, subbing them in after every set. He said it was a nice break for Sage Hill, which is 5-0 and won its Lightning Invitational over the weekend.

“It’s nice to have a little bit of fun involved,” Longoria said. “Today we got to play the JV players and maybe the non-starters, so they got some playing time. It just made it a little lighter.”

The match was played with four singles players and two doubles teams, different from the usual three singles and three doubles format of high school tennis.

Sage Hill won five of the six doubles matches, and top singles players Sarah Geocaris, Ashley Adams and Stephanie Langer all won the lone set they played.

Adams, herself an international student who transferred from Japan in summer 2005, said she really valued the cultural experience.

“It’s so cool, because their customs are different,” Adams said. “Our accents are a little different too. They think that we have an accent, and we think that they have an accent. But our interests are the same and it’s fun to play tennis with them.”

Longoria said he hopes Sage Hill’s tennis program will visit Melbourne on either Spring Break or over the summer.

The Lightning would then get an opportunity to not only accomplish some site seeing, but to return the favor and compete against Peninsula on its home turf.

“It’s a great opportunity for not only an athletic competition, but a cultural exchange,” Longoria said. “Hopefully, this will be an annual thing.”