Calabasas Deals Chaminade 15-3 Setback

Calabasas High shuffled the deck and played its cards right.

The Coyotes mixed up their lineup and defeated Chaminade, 15-3, in the semifinals of the Southern Section Division IV girls’ tennis playoffs Thursday at Calabasas High.

Chaminade, which lost to Calabasas, 13-5, in a nonleague match earlier in the season, attempted to spread its strength by moving its top singles players, Teresa Galido and Kinsley Carnahan, onto doubles teams.

Calabasas moved top singles player Shervin Saedinia to the No. 2 slot and inserted doubles players Jackie Yano at No. 1 singles and Brittany Bierman at No. 3.

Top-seeded Calabasas (21-0-1) remained on course for a division championship. In their first championship match since 1990, the Coyotes will play San Marino at noon Monday at the Claremont Club.

Chaminade (15-5), defending Division IV champion, was overmatched.

“I thought it would be a little bit closer than this,” Yano said. “But we can move people around and they’ll still be pretty solid.”

She usually plays No. 3 doubles but proved adept at singles, winning two of three sets.

Bierman, who usually plays on the No. 1 or No. 3 doubles teams, did even better, sweeping at No. 3 singles, 6-0, 6-0, 6-1.

Add to those victories a sweep by Saedinia, Frontier League singles champion and ninth-seeded player in the girls’ 16 division in Southern California according to the U.S. Tennis Assn., and the Coyotes won eight of nine sets against Chaminade’s weakened singles lineup.

“I was shocked,” Saedinia said. “I thought they would move one girl down, but not both. But it didn’t work.”

Despite Chaminade’s new-look lineup, the Coyotes were nearly as impressive in doubles, where they won seven of nine sets.

In keeping with all the mixing and matching, No. 1 doubles player Andrea Leewong of Calabasas, who has a 66-0 record with three partners this season, played with Vanessa Everly and swept at No. 3 doubles.

Leewong and Bierman recently won the Frontier League doubles title.

Kathy Habuki and Frayla Schoenfeld (64-2) swept at No. 2 doubles.

Chaminade, which lost four players from last year’s championship team to graduation, also was missing Monica Alonso, who usually plays No. 1 doubles but was out of town.

“It’s disappointing to lose the match,” said Coach Andy Berenson of Chaminade.

“But I’m very happy with our season. To lose to them doesn’t take away from that at all. They’re just a better team and they dominated.”