Rio Mesa Opponents Seeing Double

Rio Mesa High will be well-represented in the final rounds of the 96th Southern California Junior Sectional Doubles Championships today at Los Caballeros Sports Village in Fountain Valley.

Tiffany Brymer, a recent transfer to Rio Mesa now playing for the Spartans’ girls’ tennis team, will play in two finals with different partners.

Brymer and partner Abigail Spears of Valley Center, the top-seeded team in the 18 doubles division, will play second-seeded Kelly Ramirez and Stacey Tomkiewicz of Rancho Palos Verdes in one final at 10:30 a.m. Brymer and Spears defeated Brittany Reitz of Newport Beach and Heather Shelby of San Diego, 7-5, 6-2, in a semifinal Friday.

Brymer, a senior, and Carl McCafferty of Highland are the top-seeded team in the 18 mixed doubles division. They will play against second-seeded Ashley Backus of San Diego and Ryan Haymond of Bakersfield in the final at 2 p.m. Brymer and McCafferty beat Katherine Romm and Jonathan Lippert, 6-1, 6-3, in a semifinal Saturday.

Quinn Borchard combined with Rio Mesa partner Andrew Rosenfeld to beat Drew Hoskins of Los Alamitos and Brian Morton of Costa Mesa, 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 in Saturday’s semifinal of the boys’ 16 division. The fourth-seeded team, Borchard and Rosenfeld will face second-seeded Derek Betyar of Poway and K.C. Corkery of Manhattan Beach, at noon today.

In other results, fourth-seeded Amber Harper of Tarzana and Charlotte Scatliffe of San Bernardino advanced to the final of the girls’ 12 doubles division with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Michelle Esquivel and Dunya Wren. Harper and Scatliffe will play top-seeded Gia Nafarrete of Seal Beach and Kady Pooler of Laguna Niguel at noon.

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The tie-breaker was the match-maker for Camarillo High, the back-breaker for Simi Valley.

The Scorpions won a nonleague marathon match Wednesday at Camarillo on tie-breaker points, 28-22, after the teams tied, 9-9, in sets, 67-67 in games, and 3-3 in tie-breakers.

“That was something else. It was just a really tight match all the way,” said Camarillo Coach Chad Pridgen, whose team has been on both ends of several close calls.

The Scorpions (8-4) have beaten Santa Barbara and Buena on games after 9-9 ties in sets. They lost to San Marcos on games and also have 10-8 losses to Agoura, Beverly Hills and Calabasas.

“Without the schedule we’ve had, I don’t know that our players would have been able to step up at the end like that,” Pridgen said. “I expected 9-9, but I would never predict a tie in games because it’s so rare. Every one of those games counted.”

In the best of 12-point tie-breakers against Simi Valley, in which the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 singles and doubles players played each other straight up and had to win by two points, the Pioneers (10-2) were short-handed.

No. 1 player Mindy Gondrez, who missed a match against Royal on Tuesday because of illness, was still sick. She played against Camarillo, but won only one of three sets and took only one game in a 6-1 loss to the Scorpions’ No. 3 player, Erin Jones.

Once done with her sets, Gondrez went home. She wasn’t around for her tie-breaker, and Camarillo No. 1 player Jenny Underwood won, 7-0, by forfeit.

With Gondrez gone, the Scorpions won all three tie-breakers in singles, 7-0, 7-1, 7-0.

The Pioneers won all three doubles tie-breakers, but lost the match on tie-breaker points because of slimmer 7-2, 7-2, 7-3 margins.

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The Top Five

Rankings of girls’ tennis teams from the region

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RK LW School (League) 1 1 Westlake (Marmonte) 2 2 Simi Valley (Marmonte) 3 3 Harvard-Westlake (Mission) 4 4 Calabasas (Frontier) 5 NR Camarillo (Pacific View)

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