Mattea Kilstofte and Madison Hale swept their singles sets, but Corona del Mar’s strength in doubles proved to be the difference as the fourth-ranked Sea Queens defeated No. 7 Santa Barbara 10-8 in a battle of Division 1 girl tennis powers on Saturday.
It was only the third loss of the season by the Dons (11-3), with all of them coming against teams ranked higher than them in the Division 1 poll. Corona del Mar is 14-2.
“Corona’s strength is in their doubles so we knew going into the match that we needed to win some doubles matches,” Santa Barbara coach Greg Tebbe said. “Unfortunately, Corona was able to win 7 out of 9 doubles sets to secure the victory.
Santa Barbara’s performance gave Tebbe confidence that his team can do well in the playoffs.
“This was some of the best tennis I have seen this season, so I am proud of the way our team battled the entire match. We know we can compete with the top teams, so we just now need to figure out how to win these close matches once we get to the playoffs,” he said.
Next up for the Dons is a match on Wednesday at Beverly Hills.
Santa Barbara
singles:
Mattea Kilstofte 3-0
Madison Hale 3-0
Hailey deBoer 0-3
doubles:
Kelli Martindale / Maddie Cuttler 0-3
Megan Grant / Lisa Santry 1-2
Karina Thornton / Lexy Gulden 1-2
Corona Del Mar
singles:
L. Thaxter 1-2
R. Gerdau 1-2
S. Anderson 1-2
doubles:
K. Purciful / K. Naaseh 3-0
S. Share / J. Dunk 3-0
E. Chen / T. Fogarty 1-2
.
