Westlake Double-Teams Thousand Oaks : Prep tennis: Jensky twins provide winning margin in 10-8 victory that gives Warriors the championship.

Once again, Westlake turned to its Twin Powers.

For the fourth time this season, freshmen twins Brittany and Nicole Jensky provided the Warriors with their margin of victory in a close tennis match.

None was more important than Thursday’s as the Jenskys, playing at No. 3 doubles, took a tiebreaker from Kelly Mullin and Michelle Bradley of Thousand Oaks (14-4, 12-2 in league play) to give the Warriors (17-2, 14-0) a 10-8 victory and the Marmonte League championship in a 3 1/2-hour marathon match at Thousand Oaks High.

“This is huge,” Westlake Coach Connie Flanderka said. “It’s so hard when you’re undefeated and everybody is after you. This makes for an unbelievable season.”

After the first two rotations, the Westlake singles players had swept every set and the Thousand Oaks doubles teams had won all of theirs.

Things appeared to be continuing according to form when Helena Horak and Katy Smith won their third singles sets for the Warriors and two Lancer doubles teams--Jelyn Lu and Leila Jirari along with Jennifer Hill and Lindsey Tadlock--won their third sets in doubles.

With both teams looking for an upset in the two remaining sets, all attention turned to the Jensky sisters’ battle against Mullin and Berkley, and the set between Erin Smith, Westlake’s No. 2 singles player, and Angela Chen, No. 1 singles player for the Lancers.

The Jenskys came through for the Warriors with a 7-6 (7-3 in the tiebreaker) victory in a set that was interrupted by darkness and moved to lighted courts at Thousand Oaks Community Park with the score tied, 4-4.

“There was pressure because we knew it determined the outcome,” Brittany said. “I don’t think its something you can get used to.”

Added Nicole: “We just knew we had to win. As freshmen it feels good to be league champs.”

Smith eventually won her final set, 7-5, surviving several deuce points against Chen in the 12th game, which lasted nearly 20 minutes.

“I knew I could pull it out because I wanted it,” said Smith, who won all 42 sets she played in league matches this season.

“The streak was on my mind but I tried not to think about it too much.”

Thousand Oaks played without its No. 2 singles player, Melissa Keifer, who is out with a muscle tear in her elbow. Her absence was noticeable. The Lancer singles players managed to win a total of only five games before Chen took five against Smith.

The Warrior doubles teams won 15 games in the first two rotations and the Warriors had a sizable 70-60 advantage in games when the final two sets were moved to the lighted courts.

“I guess it just wasn’t meant to be,” Lancer Coach Dave Assorson said. “It was close and I’m real happy with our team’s performance.”