Taking down a Southern Section powerhouse like Mira Costa would’ve been hard enough at full strength, but the Palisades High girls tennis team was missing nine players because of injury, several of them starters, and its lack of depth showed in Wednesday’s 15-3 loss to the Mustangs in Manhattan Beach.
Diana Silvers won her last set 6-1 at No. 2 singles, Madeline Prins and Lizzie Belokonnyi won their last set 6-2 at No. 1 doubles and Morgan Swan and Ally Williams won their last set 6-0 at No. 2 doubles. Prins and Belokonnyi chalked it up as a learning experience.
“We had an off day, but we learned a lot about posititivity — we were very negative the first two matches and it showed and as soon as we changed that, things shifted completely,” Â Prins said. “We talked about how tennis is about learning how to play even when you’re not having a good day, so we all got a lot out of this.”
“In the beginning we tried to do things that were out of our comfort zone and that’s why we weren’t doing so well, then we switched later into trying to just win and things got progressively better by the end,” Belokonnyi added. “A good percent of it was mental.”
Under round robin scoring, which is used in the Southern Section, the first to 10 points wins. If the teams tie 9-9 in sets, total games are counted to determine the winner. Mira Costa (7-0), which had already beaten Long Beach Poly, Fountain Valley, Marlborough, Beverly Hills, Los Alamitos and Palos Verdes, swept the first rotation 6-0 and was ahead 11-1 after two rotations.
The Dolphins had played only two teams prior to their toughest test of the regular season — a practice match against Marymount (which the Dolphins won 10-8) and a 7-0 shutout of LACES in their Western League opener last week.
“I don’t care about having an undefeated season — and I’m not just saying that because we lost,” Dolphins Coach Sean Passan said. “I’m saying that because the whole point of sitting for an hour in traffic on the way here and probably another hour on the way home is so they learn. I can’t learn from the teams in our league. When the girls lose, I learn more. I want to know how they play when they’re stressed or when they’re angry. This helps me solidify my lineup because a pairing I thought would work may not. That’s why you saw a lot of switching at third doubles.”
Senior Izzy Guterson and fellow senior Jesse Zand came back from a 4-1 deficit to tie it 4-4 before falling 6-4 in the last set at No. 3 doubles.
“This doesn’t count for anything and it’s giving Passan and all of us an idea what positions we can handle, how we do under pressure and giving us a taste for the JV girls and what partners they should have,” Guterson said. “The closest we’ve come to beating Mira Costa was a [9-9] tie my freshman year.”
— Steve Galluzzo
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