Westlake Wins 3-A Tennis Final

Jennifer Reese won a singles set and her teammates swept the doubles competition to give Westlake High a 10-8 upset victory over top-seeded Calabasas on Tuesday in the Southern Section 3-A Division tennis final in Claremont.

After Calabasas (16-4) had dominated singles play all day, winning 48 games while losing only one, Reese defeated Alison Paris, 6-3, in the final singles set. It was all the third-seeded Warriors needed against a team that had dominated singles play all season.

The Westlake doubles teams swept all nine sets but did not win as convincingly as the Calabasas singles players: The Warriors won 56 doubles games to Calabasas’ 25. If Reese had not won her one singles set, Westlake would have lost based on the total number of games won.

Even after Reese’s victory, the Coyotes still had a chance to win. In the final set of the match, Calabasas’ No. 1 doubles team of Tracy Paris and Melissa Pifko took a 5-3 lead over Westlake’s No. 2 team of Ari Kia and Alexandra Backes. But Kia-Backes eventually forced a tiebreaker and won.

“This is tough,” said Calabasas Coach Bill Bellatty, who watched the Coyotes lose in similar fashion to Dana Hills in last year’s title match. “Two years in a row we’ve made it this far and won more games only to lose, 10-8.”

Reese, Westlake’s No. 1 player, lost badly to Calabasas’ No. 1 singles player, Natasha Pospich, 6-0, and No. 2 Stacey Jellen, 6-1. Paris has been a consistent winner all year at No. 3 singles, but Reese never doubted that she could win the set, even when Paris took an early 3-2 lead.

“I told myself to work hard, every single point, even if it killed me,” Reese said. “Alison is a good player, but I felt I could beat her.”

Reese began her surge in the sixth game, breaking Paris’ serve, then holding serve to take the lead. Meanwhile, Paris was bothered by a pulled tendon in her right shoulder that had hampered her throughout the playoffs.