La Cañada girls’ tennis edged by top-ranked Valencia at home

LA CAÑADA — With Rio Hondo League play set to begin later in the week, the La Cañada High girls’ tennis team is in a stretch of facing prolific teams.

It’s comes with a purpose — to see where the Spartans stack up throughout their lineup and determine their strengths and weaknesses so the proper adjustments can be made. Among the squads they have faced the past several weeks included Burbank and Arcadia.

On Monday, La Cañada faced arguably its toughest test when it went up against Valencia in a nonleague home match.

Unfortunately for the Spartans, they dropped all nine doubles sets in a 10-8 defeat against Valencia, the top-ranked team in the latest CIF Southern Section Division II poll.

“I actually think it’s one of our better losses,” said La Cañada Coach Will Moravec, whose team dropped to 4-2 and will open league Thursday with a road match against Monrovia before facing Hart in a nonleague home match Friday. “Our doubles teams were good, but Valencia is just really solid in doubles.

“These are the kind of matches where you can learn a lot about yourself. I feel pretty optimistic about the team going into league. Hopefully, we’ll see improvement. We just need one of our doubles teams to get us over the hump.”

Valencia, a member of the Foothill League, improved to 7-0.

The Spartans, who finished second in league last season behind San Marino and advanced to the second round of the Division II playoffs, fared much better in singles. They got sweeps from Cassie McKenzie, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, Ally McKenzie, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1, and two wins from Sawa Keymeulen, 7-5, 6-0. Ally McKenzie, who captured the league’s individual championship last season, rallied from a 4-1 deficit in her third set.

“I just have to calm down and be more patient getting to balls,” said Ally McKenzie, a reigning All-Area selection who finished 42-4 a year ago and became the first Spartan to win a single league crown since Kim Gilmour accomplished the feat in 2001.

The Vikings, who took second in league in 2013 after winning 10 league championships in a row, got doubles sweeps from Remy Balmain and Tina Inchalik, 6-0, 6-0, 6-1, Katelyn Choi and Kate Zeile, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0, and Lauren Wolf and Aharti Bommireddipalli, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2.