SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ TENNIS INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS : Right Zone Eludes Wachtler, Scott

After “zoning” in the Southern Section individual doubles semifinals, Corona del Mar’s Megan Wachtler and Alissa Scott looked to be in another time zone for the finals.

They split the first six games against Santa Barbara’s Pilar Montgomery and Sarita Yardi, then lost the next nine and the match, 6-3, 6-0, Friday at the Lindborg Racquet Club.

“We were really psyched up for the first match,” Wachtler said. “We zoned. In the finals, we got off to a slow start and never got into it mentally.”

The fourth-seeded Wachtler and Scott upset Calabasas’ top-seeded team of Shera Wiegler and Deborah Pepkowitz, 6-2, 6-2, in a 50-minute semifinal match that featured near-perfect performances from Wachtler and Scott.

But after more than an hour delay between matches, Wachtler came out and immediately had her serve broken against the third-seeded Montgomery and Yardi.

“I kind of forgot we had to play another match,” Wachtler said. “It got more frustrating, the more we tried.”

They tried getting the ball past Yardi, a 5-foot freshman dynamo, but she covered the court more like a 6-footer.

“She was zoning,” Scott said. “We tried everything.”

Yardi was nonchalant about her performance.

“I thought I was playing well,” she said. “I was relaxed for this match. I figured we were already in the finals. We get a trophy either way.”

In the singles final, junior Amanda Basica became the third consecutive Palos Verdes Peninsula player to win the singles title by soundly defeating Santa Barbara San Marcos junior Kara Warkentin, 6-2, 6-2. Basica, the tournament’s top-seeded player, reached the final as a freshman and did not play last year.