Like a presidential candidate winning the popular vote but not the electoral, Santa Barbara High’s girls tennis team won more games but lost one set too many in Thursday’s 10-8 CIF Division II semifinal match at Chadwick.
“We lost a couple of tiebreakers. We just needed that one push and couldn’t quite get it,” said Steve Geremia. “(Assistant coach) Gregg Tebbe and I are extremely proud of this group. We were in it until the last point.”
As an example of how close it was, Chadwick’s top singles player, Cait Bartlett, went 3-0 but won via tiebreaker in two of those sets. Santa Barbara’s No. 3 doubles team of Talia and Ariana Hudson lost to Chadwick’s top tandem in a tiebreaker.
“We just needed one of those tiebreakers to go our way but we didn’t get it. I have no complaints. Their effort was outstanding,” said Geremia.
The match lasted well over three hours, and Geremia estimated that his team has had to travel over 400 miles in the last three days without much rest.
Both Rachel Decker-Sadowski and Ari Beckerman were 2-1 in singles play.
Decker-Sadowski won’t have much rest heading into Friday’s CIF individual championships at Cate school beginning at 8:30 a.m. Doubles play at Carpinteria High begins at 9:30 a.m., and the Santa Barbara duos of Hudson/Hudson and Haley Hranicky-Galitzer/Aurora Garrison will both be competing.
CHADWICK 10, SANTA BARBARA 8
Singles — SB: Rachel Decker-Sadowski 2-1, Ari Beckerman 2-1, Grace Flintermann 1-2. C: Cait Bartlett 3-0, Montana Morgan 1-2, Christina Ling 0-3.
Doubles — SB: Hanna Grokenberger/Kinzie McKeown 1-2, Haley Hranicky-Galitzer/Aurora Garrison 1-2, Thalia Hudson/Ariana Hudson 1-2. C: Hannah Han/Madeline Sung 3-0, Carson Pittman/Madison Webster 3-0, Lauren MacHarg/Mallory Melideo 0-3.
