Locals unable to advance past second round of Pacific League tennis tourney
PASADENA — Crescenta Valley High’s girls’ tennis team has used the strength of its doubles corps to enjoy its share of success this season.
The Falcons, who placed third in the Pacific League, were hoping that their doubles teams would continue that success Monday in the first day of the Pacific League Tournament at Pasadena High.
However, Arcadia, the Pacific League and defending CIF Southern Section champion, teamed its best singles players in doubles for the tournament, making for some formidable duos.
Crescenta Valley had two doubles duos, along with one singles player, win first-round matches Monday in the competition that also featured Glendale and Hoover. However, none of the three could advance to Wednesday’s semifinals.
It was the second straight season in which no Falcons, Nitros or Tornadoes were able to advance to the final day of the league tournament.
Arcadia singles and doubles players earned five of the eight spots in Wednesday’s semifinal matches.
“Arcadia’s doubles was actually stronger in the tournament than they were during the season because they put their best singles players together,” Crescenta Valley Coach Sam Hyun said. “That made their doubles teams very tough.”
The Falcons doubles duo of Rachel Shin and Michelle Jung, seeded sixth, won its opening match against No. 11 Camryn Thompson and Emma Jones of Burroughs, 6-1, 6-0, before falling in the second round to the No. 3 team of Angela Qui and Sunny Ng of Arcadia, 6-0, 6-1.
“We have been playing together the whole year, so I think that helps us because we know one another and we know how the other one plays,” Shin said. “It’s just nice because we’ve been playing together for a long time.”
Also winning in the first round were No. 9 Camille Gibney and Kiran Hamkins, 6-4, 6-0, of Crescenta Valley before losing to the top-seeded Arcadia squad of Michelle Deng and Lauren Ko, 6-0, 6-0.
In singles, Falcon Polin Crete, at No. 5, defeated No. 12 Shushan Papoyan of Burbank, 6-0, 6-1, and then fell to No. 4 Cloe Barberi of Arcadia, 6-0, 6-0.
Falling in the first round of doubles competition was the 10th-seeded Glendale duo of Kavitha Ambatipudi and Emi Guzman, which lost to No. 7 Jenny Drechsler and Sandy LeMay of Burroughs, 6-3, 6-1, the No. 12 Hoover team of Jessica Chung and Sophia Flippin, which fell to No. 5 Alice Avedikian and Elza Vardanyan of Burbank, 6-1, 6-2, and the No. 15 Falcons squad of Marie Arutyunyan and Marina Saroyan, which lost to No. 2 Nicole Merrit and Johana Faraj of Burbank, 7-5, 6-0.
“I want our players to gain experience and learn from playing against tougher opponents,” Hoover Coach Yeprem Chavdarian said. “I tell the girls it’s always a privilege to play against someone who is better than you.
“We are in a tough league, there’s no getting around it. But what we tried to do to compensate that is to put our best players in doubles.”
In singles, No. 14 Loris Denton of Hoover lost in the first round to No. 3 Jourdan Wallace of Pasadena, 6-1, 6-1, No. 10 Kristen Lee of Glendale fell to No. 7 Chloe Bookmyer of Burroughs, 6-0, 6-0, and No. 6 Anjana Saravavan of Crescenta Valley lost to No. 11 Michelle Dong of Arcadia, 2-6, 6-2 (10-7).
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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com
Twitter: @jefftsports
