Recap
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA — JSerra sweeps the home and away series with nemesis, Santa Margarita, for the first time in school history. Definitely a team effort! Someone trips and falls, they are picked up by teammates while others stepped up and capture a set. Even on an individual basis, Kaley Houshmand dropping a hard fought tiebreaker set at line 3 singles, comes back and gets 4 games vs line 2 player in the last match of the day, as all players and parents watch this Lion take the match on her shoulders past the finish line!. Jenna Lee defeats her former team three straight sets as did Taylor Barnes. Claire Delaney with Katy Golbranson upset SM's undefeated line 1 doubles team, 9-7 tiebreaker win. They were down 3 match points in the breaker! Then, freshmen Gabby Basa and Sophia Moncur come from behind 1-4, for a 6-4 victory over SM's line 3 doubles. Thank you coach Keith for helping with this comeback in particular. Thank you Coach Wilson for taking over JV matches, allowing Keith to travel with the varsity squad, it is a big help to have 2 coaches at the tight matches! AND a HUGE shout out to our athletic director, Chris Ledyard, who ventured up to SM and watched the ENTIRE match from start to finish...Coach Kirk notes, "I think Chris is becoming a legitimate 'tennis parent' ! He may have gain a few gray hairs today!" :) Anyone that spends this amount of time at a tennis match, with our scoring system can tell you that it really is a game of inches AND every game counts! Alexa Taba with Lily Sheybani, who came from behind in the last set played in the first SM contest, to win the match for us, did not capture a set this time. However, they added precious games to our 78 game tally! EVERY PLAYER today is a MVP!
What is the teams status as of now..... JSerra has 3 more Trinity matches ALL at home..
We beat two of the teams handily, but, Mater Dei will be tough. Had we lost to SM, we were looking at probably sharing the co-championship with them, sorry, we are selfish [in this regard].
The girls are striving for undefeated Trinity run and it is up to the coaches to keep them focused on 1 match at a time as we ramp up for a good CIF run. Go Lions!