San Juan Capistrano, CA — What a finish! Behind 5-7 going into the final round and getting down 6-9 early on, our JV ladies won the last 3 sets to tie 9-9 and ended up winning 79-78 on game count, which took 10 minutes and 2 recounts. Wow, great efforts by everyone. Round 1 was a 3-3 tie. The Stallions took 4 of 6 sets in round 2, while JSerra won 4 of 6 in round 3. We were balanced in singles wins (4) vs doubles (5). We won the tie-break war: 2-1. And, we bagel’d them 3 times, but lost zero sets 0-6. That proved to be the difference. Backtracking a bit to today’s lineup: we gave our travel squad “A” trio a chance to play 2 full sets this afternoon and put some players into singles who normally play doubles. So 5 people played once today, and 11 got to play twice. Only 1 line won all 3 rounds, congrats and MVP honors the trio assigned to #1 doubles today: Jessica Jenkins, Christina Nama and Sam McCulloch. This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks that both Christina and Jessica were part of a 3 for 3 trio - well done. Line #2 dubs was only a tie-break away from taking all 3 sets. One member of that trio, Arina Wagner, won both sets played for MVP honors, 1 set each with Gianna Gancar and Sydney Shaw. MVP honors to those winning 100% of matches played, even if it was only 1 set: Caitlyn Davidson and Kate Layk who sub’d in and played 2 of their singles starters. Kate was down 4-5, 2 match points at 15-40 vs one of Coach Kirk’s protégés Madeleine. Kate broke serve and won the tie-break 7-4. Huge effort! Caitlyn played a steady set, winning with a strong serve and solid forehand. Well played. Last, certainly not least, MVP honors and kudos to Dylan Henderson who beat both their top players: 6-0, 6-0! Again, she could have easily gone 3 for 3. In the very first round, Rowan Johnston was down 0-4, and fought back to tie 4-4 before bowing out 4-6. Had she given up and not fought for every game, we would have lost. Same said for Isabella Aftabi who took 3 important games off their #3 starter in the final round. Great efforts, thanks for not giving up. Emma Doss and Ariana Gonzalez got 4 games off their #3 doubles team in opening round as well. Those 4 games we’re important….. …..What we missed out on this afternoon was the shock and awe of taking the first round 5-1. The set advantage early on is not as important as the psychological edge of “kicking them in the teeth” as the old adage goes. Next up: tomorrow at Laguna Beach, 2:30 pm. Squads JVS and B. Going for # 6!!!