Vaughan Outlasts Them All

Nina Vaughan said her semifinal victory Saturday was “all heart.” Sunday, she called her victory over her friend and doubles partner, Katey Becker, “all guts.”

Or maybe what Vaughan meant to say was that she was just nuts. Who else would stand in 100-degree heat and slam ground strokes from the baseline for more than two hours?

But there was a method to Vaughan’s madness. She saw that Becker didn’t have the power to match strokes with her, so she simply waited her out and hit more winners than Becker, and won, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, to take the girls’ 16s division of the Southern California Junior Sectionals at Los Caballeros Sports Village.

“I’m not going to outhit somebody,” said Becker, who will be a junior at Villa Park in the fall. “It’s my game to outlast people.”

But Vaughan, who will be a sophomore at Corona del Mar High next year, wasn’t going anywhere. She hammered backhand and forehand smashes deep into the court and the eighth-seeded Vaughan even mixed in an occasional volley to keep Becker off balance.

Vaughan’s tournament victory was her first of the year and it went a long way toward giving her an emotional lift heading into the summer of national tournaments. Becker, who was unseeded, had never reached a tournament final and her nerves showed as she served eight double faults in the first set.

Fullerton’s Joseph Gilbert had no such problems as he picked apart the serve and volley game of San Diego’s Trent Miller to take the boys’ 18s championship, 6-2, 0-6, 6-3. Gilbert, who will attend Boise State on a tennis scholarship next year, had been nursing a sore groin entering the sectionals but he finishes the tournament with a trophy, a bundle of confidence and a Southern California ranking of one or two.

In the boys’ 16s finals, Corona del Mar’s Taylor Dent was no match for the steady baseline game of San Marino’s Andrew Park. Dent beat Park in three sets last month in the Southern Section high school final, but Park defeated Dent, 6-4, 6-2, Sunday. Dent recently returned from three weeks in Europe where he was 3-3 in representing the U.S. Tennis Assn.

“As soon as I walked on the court, I knew my legs had had it,” Dent said. “Nonstop playing for two months caught up to me.”

Notes

Fullerton’s Joseph Gilbert and Dylan Mann of Winnetka won the boys’ 18s doubles final with a 7-5, 7-6 victory. . . . Irvine’s Natalie Exon and Allison Arvizu of Huntington Beach were defeated by Jonni Seymour of Bakersfield and Darian Chappell of Camarillo, 6-3, 6-1, in the girls’ 18s doubles final.