Girls’ Tennis: CdM survives scare in quarters

DANA POINT — At the start of the match, Corona del Mar High girls’ tennis senior Sina Schwenk-Mueller held the CdM scoresheet. She was tasked with getting the lineup of Monday afternoon’s opponent, Dana Hills.

Ninety minutes later, the top-seeded Sea Kings were under pressure in their closest match of the season. They were tied 6-6 with the Dolphins in the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.

Schwenk-Mueller went from writing down the scores to figuring into the score, after CdM Coach Jamie Gresh subbed her in for the final round at No. 2 doubles to play with sophomore Shaya Northrup.

“On a lot of other teams, she would be a starting singles player,” Gresh said after the match. “I have a lot of confidence in her ... Sina’s very comfortable from the baseline.”

Schwenk-Mueller came through, teaming with Northrup for a 6-2 win over Dana Hills’ Emelia Gorcyzca and Lauren Heinrich. It was the first set completed of the third round and it gave CdM back the lead.

Even in the closest match of the season so far, the depth shone through for CdM, which rallied to claim a 10-8 victory at Dana Hills High and advance to the Division 1 semifinals for the fourth straight year.

The Sea Kings (22-0) will play host to No. 4-seeded Harvard-Westlake in the semifinals on Wednesday, after Harvard-Westlake got past Arcadia, 11-7, in another quarterfinal. Wednesday’s match will be a rematch of a year ago, when the Wolverines upset CdM, 11-7, in the semifinals.

CdM wants to avoid another upset this season. But first the Sea Kings had to get past Dana Hills (15-4), which shared the South Coast League title with San Clemente and really pushed CdM in Monday’s match. The Dolphins earned a 3-3 tie in sets after the first round after Dana Hills’ Courtney Swift, the South Coast League singles champion, rallied for a 7-5 win over CdM’s Roxy MacKenzie.

The score remained tied after two rounds. It was nothing like CdM’s 13-5 nonleague win earlier this season, and for good reason. Dana Hills Coach Justin Green said two of his top doubles players, Tatum Phillips and Drae Fresenius, missed that match due to injury.

Phillips and Dana Mackensen swept at No. 2 doubles for Dana Hills on Monday. Fresenius, teamed with Caroline Halloran, won twice.

“I knew we were stronger than them in singles, we just needed to hold up and squeeze a few out in doubles,” Gresh said. “But his doubles was drastically different than the last time we played. It kind of was reminiscent of the [nonleague] match we played last year with them, where we won 9-9, we won two doubles and seven singles. This year, we won seven singles and three doubles.”

CdM still earned a large games advantage that had to keep the Sea Kings feeling good. Most of it came from singles, where junior Danielle Willson swept, 6-0, 6-2, 6-0, at No. 1 singles. MacKenzie won two of three, as did senior Jasie Dunk, who was battling sickness on Monday. Dunk defaulted her final match against Swift midway through, with the match already decided in CdM’s favor.

CdM had a strong third round to earn the victory. Schwenk-Mueller definitely played her role.

“I was honestly really nervous,” she said. “I was kind of psyching myself out in the beginning, but Shaya and I had a really good momentum going. We didn’t make as many mistakes. After the first two games, we kind of slowed down a little and we lost the next two, but then we got it back and we won. It felt good to win, but I was really nervous going into it, just because of how important the match was.”

After Schwenk-Mueller and Northrup earned their third-round win, Willson and MacKenzie quickly followed with singles victories. CdM’s No. 1 doubles team of Camellia Edalat and Brooke Kenerson also rallied for a 6-4 win over Fresenius and Halloran, who won the South Coast League doubles title this year. It was the second win of the day for Edalat and Kenerson.

CdM will have to play well to beat Harvard-Westlake and advance to the Division 1 title match for the first time since 2008. But Schwenk-Mueller said the Sea Kings are confident.

“I think we can do it,” she said. “Today we were really nervous. We were pretty shaky at the beginning. We just need to stay focused, and we’ll be fine for Wednesday.”