Doubles the difference for CdM girls’ tennis in big win over No. 3 Peninsula

If a student-athlete is coming to Corona del Mar High to play tennis, it is difficult to picture any of them being surprised by the competition placed before them.

The battle to make the Sea Kings’ roster stacks up as one of the tougher tasks that a player will deal with all year. That is why CdM tennis seasons are rarely cut short.

Sea Kings coach Jamie Gresh fully subscribes to the philosophy that in order to be the best, you have to beat the best. Hence, there are always matches awaiting against the perennial elite. One of those matches arrived on Tuesday, with CdM hosting Rolling Hills Estates Peninsula.

Corona del Mar rode a quick start to a convincing 12-6 win in a premier nonleague girls’ tennis match.

Gresh called facing the Panthers (6-1) his team’s biggest match of the regular season, Pacific Coast League games against Irvine University High not withstanding.

“The girls knew this was a big one,” Gresh said. “We’re ranked No. 2 [in CIF-SS Division 1]. They’re ranked No. 3. They knew exactly how it was going to be today in terms of the level of competition, and I thought they rose to the occasion and played really well.

“I thought doubles was really strong. We won eight out of nine doubles, lost a tiebreaker there.”

Shaya Northrup and Kristina Evloeva swept their matches at No. 2 doubles. They dropped just four games, all of them in a 6-4 set win over Koko Makrygiannis and Alicia Carmona.

Roxanne MacKenzie and Isabella McKinney also ran the table.

The Sea Kings (7-0) have a handful of transfers on their roster. Paulina Loredo arrived from Carrollton, Texas, and the three-star recruit immediately supplied some quick, soft hands at net. Although Loredo and her partner Lauren Friedman dropped a tiebreaker in their second set, it was evident that the duo had potential moving forward.

“She has a really good serve, so we were complementing each other,” Loredo said of Friedman. “She could hit a good serve, and then I would close at the net.”

Elsewhere, the Sea Kings added four-star singles player Annika Bassey for her senior year. Most junior tennis players hope to make it to Ojai, but Bassey actually left the Weil Tennis Academy up there. She had been boarding at the academy, but she wanted a change of scenery from the dorms for her senior year.

Bassey’s 7-6 (4) win over Ryan Peus completed the first round of match play, with the Sea Kings taking a 5-1 lead after six sets. She also competed well against Kimberly Hance, the Panthers’ five-star No. 1 singles player. Hance won the match, 6-4.

This is the first time that Bassey has played for a high school team, and she is enjoying the change.

“I like the team atmosphere,” Bassey said. “It’s a lot more fun. It’s nice to have fun when I play with my teammates. My classmates come and cheer for me.

“It’s cool because we have a lot of versatility with our lineup. We play a lot of different lineups.”

In fact, Gresh said he trotted out a completely new lineup for the annual nonleague matchup with Peninsula.

Of course, there was still the most well-known of assets left in Gresh’s singles trio. Danielle Willson, the reigning Daily Pilot Girls’ Tennis Player of the Year, won two out of three sets on Monday. Hance outlasted Willson in a tiebreaker in the players’ final set of the day.

Corona del Mar 12, Peninsula 6

Singles: Freyman (CdM) lost to Hance (Pen) 0-6, Kenerson (CdM-sub) lost to Peus (Pen) 0-6, Freyman lost to Sharng (Pen) 0-6; Bassey (CdM) 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-0; Willson (CdM) 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-0.

Doubles: Loredo/Friedman (CdM) def. Makrygiannis/Carmona (Pen) 6-3, def. Ko/Thomas (Pen) 6-3, lost to Hosseini/Tanagawa (Pen) 6-7 (5); Northrup/Evloeva (CdM) 6-4, 6-0, 6-0; MacKenzie/McKinney (CdM) 6-3, 6-1, 6-0.

Andrew.Turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @ProfessorTurner