Santa Barbara High freshman Summer Garrison reaches to keep the point alive. Garrison swept three sets on Thursday.
Santa Barbara High’s girls tennis team is back in a CIF championship match for the first time since 2006 after the Dons’ 15-3 victory over visiting El Dorado on Thursday.
Megan Grant, pictured, and Madison Hale led the Dons' doubles teams to a 8-1 record.
The Dons were only the second team to defeat the Golden Hawks this season and did it with relative ease. The Dons have cruised through the Division II CIF postseason, having won four straight playoff matches by a combined score of 59-12.
Thursday’s match was never in doubt as Santa Barbara captured the match’s first 11 sets and led 11-1 after two rounds.
“Every match we’ve gone through has been pretty tough. The score doesn’t tell it,” said Dons senior captain Taryn Mjelde. “Our team is so strong this year and our depth is what is winning us the matches.”
Mjelde and doubles partner Marianna Alevra swept their sets 6-0, 6-3, 6-0.
Channel League doubles champions Madison Hale and Megan Grant did a game better with three set wins at 6-0, 6-2, 6-0.
Not only are the Dons deep, but they are young as well. Seven of Santa Barbara’s nine starters are freshmen or sophomores.
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While the Dons haven’t reached a CIF title match since 2006, they have been in the semifinals every year since only to be stopped short.
“We’ve kind of had this curse where we haven’t been able to win in the semifinals but we had a pretty good draw this time,” said Dons sophomore Lisa Santry, who won a pair of sets in doubles with Karina Thornton.
The championship will be decided on Monday at the Claremont Tennis Club, with the Dons to play Newport Harbor at 10:30 a.m.
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SANTA BARBARA 15, EL DORADO 3
SB Singles – Summer Garrison 3-0, Aurora Garrison 2-0, Mattea Kilstofte 2-0, Hailey DeBoer 0-1, Lexy Guilden 0-1. ED Singles – N. Etchegaray 1-2, G. Etchegaray 0-3, B. Etchegaray 1-2.
SB Doubles – Grant/Hale 3-0, Santry/Thornton 2-1, Mjelde/Alevra 3-0. ED Doubles – Cyrus/David 1-2, Sullivan/Barrett 0-3, Tobin/Ishihara 0-3.
