Girls’ Tennis: Heartbreak for CdM

For the fourth straight year, the Corona del Mar High girls’ tennis team lost in the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoffs.

For the second straight year, the Sea Kings had to watch on their own courts as visiting Harvard-Westlake joyously celebrated an upset win that put the Wolverines, not CdM, into the Division 1 title match.

The courts are blue at CdM. So were the top-seeded Sea Kings. This year was supposed to be different for Corona del Mar, which had not lost a match all season.

In the end, though, CdM was again left a match short of its first CIF finals appearance since 2008. No. 4-seeded Harvard-Westlake again had reason for the jubilation after earning a 9-9 (77-73 on games) victory that propelled the Wolverines into Friday’s final against No. 2-seeded Campbell Hall, which beat University, 14-4, in the other semifinal.

Four games were all that separated CdM (22-1) from the trip to the Claremont Club. As light faded quickly from the Sea Kings’ courts around 5 p.m., tears were in the eyes of many of the CdM players as they exited to the parking lot.

CdM will most likely continue its season Nov. 18 in the CIF USTA Southern California Regionals tournament. But how did this one get away?

“That’s probably the most heartbreaking high school match that I’ve been a part of,” said a soft-spoken CdM Coach Jamie Gresh, in his fifth year coaching at the school, after his players had filed out. “I commend the girls for how well they competed. They put it all out there on the line. I couldn’t be more proud of them. I’m hurting just as much as they are. There’s a lot of tears and sad eyes, and rightfully so. They deserved to win, and were four games away. The margin of winning and losing today was paper-thin. Harvard-Westlake just played a little bit better.”

Harvard-Westlake (18-2) never really led the match until the end, when Lara Mikhail came through for the visitors. With CdM up 9-8 in sets but trailing by a single game, Mikhail defeated CdM senior Sina Schwenk-Mueller, 6-3, to clinch the match. Harvard-Westlake Coach Kristie Reynolds-Gipe said that Mikhail was supposed to be part of the Wolverines doubles lineup, but was pulled from it after she felt sick during warmups. However, she subbed in for a big singles win in the third round.

This year’s semifinal match was even closer than last year’s, when Harvard-Westlake claimed an 11-7 win. Both teams stacked their doubles lineup Wednesday, with Reynolds-Gipe putting two of her strongest players, sophomores Jennifer Gadalov and Amanda Chan, at Nos. 2 and 3 doubles respectively. CdM senior Jasie Dunk was still feeling under the weather, so Gresh put her at No. 3 doubles with sophomore Roxy MacKenzie. And CdM sophomores Shaya Northrup and Bella McKinney, who played doubles together last season, were paired up for the first time this year at No. 2 doubles.

Dunk and MacKenzie swept easily, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1. Northrup and McKinney won one set, as did CdM’s usual No. 1 pairing of senior Camellia Edalat and junior Brooke Kenerson.

Wednesday’s match was tied 3-3 after the first round and CdM actually claimed a 7-5 advantage after two rounds. The difference in the second round was CdM junior Danielle Willson, who edged Harvard-Westlake senior Jenna Moustafa, 7-6 (7-2). That, combined with Emily Freyman’s 6-2 singles win over Angela Tan, helped give CdM the edge.

Willson’s win over Moustafa came by the smallest of margins. Moustafa, a former Newport Coast resident who won twice for Harvard-Westlake and is bound for Harvard, had two set points against Willson serving at 5-4. On the second one, Moustafa’s forehand hit the top of the net cord but fell back on her side, giving the break of serve to Willson. Two games later, the set went to a tiebreaker, where Willson again rallied after losing the first two points.

“It was a really good win, and I think that I just fought through it,” said Willson, who swept for CdM at No. 1 singles. “Jamie told me, ‘Just fight for every point.’ Obviously, my aggressive shots weren’t working very well today. I think I was really nervous, and I ended up just not moving very well. But I ended up pulling through, so I thought that was great. It kind of bled over to confidence with the team. Our team felt really unified, and I think that really helped us get a lot closer score this year [compared to last year’s semifinal match].”

Dunk and MacKenzie made quick work of Harvard-Westlake’s Grace Swift and Claire Tan in the third round, giving CdM an 8-5 lead. But the Wolverines countered quickly. Moustafa blanked Freyman, 6-0, and Chan and Sophia Genender came through for a 6-0 win over McKinney and Northrup.

Around that time, members of CdM’s football team arrived to cheer on girls’ tennis. But Harvard-Westlake stayed composed. After Gadalov and freshman Maddy Dupree earned their second set win of the day for Harvard-Westlake by beating Northrup and McKinney, 6-4, the sets score was tied at 8-8. But it became clear that CdM, trailing on games, would have to win the final two sets.

Willson did her part, rallying for a 6-4 win over Erica Ekstrand. But Mikhail finished off the Sea Kings, winning the “deuce plus one” point with Schwenk-Mueller serving at 3-5.

Harvard-Westlake’s players rushed onto the doubles court in celebration, a scene all too familiar to CdM from a season ago.

Gresh said he hopes CdM’s girls can now repeat what the boys did last spring, turning a tough Division 1 semifinal loss into a Southern California Regionals victory. But it was also clear, this loss would sting for a while.

“Ten things needed to go right tonight, and nine went right and we just didn’t get the 10th break,” Gresh said. “That’s sports, right there. That’s athletics. Division 1 high school tennis in Southern California is an amazingly competitive setting. We had 15 girls on the team, and 15 girls were all-in. We just came up an inch or two short, but I really respect how they’ve practiced this year, I really admire how they came together as a team. They were living and dying with each other on each point, and that’s the definition of a great team.

“They just showed a lot of heart, resiliency, grit, mental toughness — everything it takes to win the match. Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers of why they didn’t win the match, and I told them that. But I want them to keep their heads high, because I felt like they deserved to win and battled hard enough. It just didn’t happen.”