Girls Tennis:
The CIF-SS No. 8 ranked Lady Minutemen closed out their regular season by completing a season sweep over Cerritos Valley Christian in a match that wasn’t as close as the score would indicate.
Maranatha struck first with two quick 6-0 victories by No. 1 and 2 singles, Stella Hsieh and Audrey Loh, over Valley Christian’s No. s 1 and 2, Naomi Harris and Em DeYoung.
No.1 doubles Amanda Yee/Kasey McCoy clocked in soon after with a 6-1 victory over No. 1 Catie Palmer/Joey Meeks. No. 2 Riley McCoy/Stella Chen checked in next with a breakthrough 6-3 win over the Defenders’ No. 2, Daisy Youn/Nicole Chang, a team they had never beaten, though they’ve come close.
The consistent combination of Chen’s set-up groundstrokes and McCoy’s dominant close-out volleys proved to be too much to handle. If McCoy and Chen can continue that kind of focused play, it would greatly help Maranatha’s chances in the playoffs.
The second round of play was nearly a carbon copy of the first, with the aforementioned players winning again, putting MHS ahead, 8-4.
With Hsieh and Yee/McCoy completing their sweeps to start the third round, the Lady Minutemen had already clinched the victory at 10-5, before the Defenders rallied back to win the final three sets, including a surprising 6-2 victory by DeYoung, over MHS’s No. 3 Violet Salvo; a match-up that Salvo had easily dominated (6-2, 6-1) in their previous meetings.
Of special note is continued season-long rise of Hsieh, who has led the way for Maranatha, finishing the third and final round of league matches on a tear, going 9-0 in sets and 54-1 in games.
She will need to continue her rise if the Lady Minutemen are to have a chance to advance in the playoffs.
Maranatha finishes the regular season, 9-6 overall, and 6-3 in league.
Next week is the Olympic League Tournament, with the top 8 singles players and top 8 doubles teams in the league vying for the right to represent the Olympic League in the nation’s largest individuals high school tennis tournament, the CIF-SS Individuals.
Then comes the waiting game to find out who the Lady Minutemen will face in the CIF-SS team tennis playoffs.
The draw will be revealed on November 1, when MHS will find out if they will play a wild-card match on November 2, or will get a spot in the main draw.
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