Granada Hills Aces Final With Victory Over Carson, 4-3

It took until the last match of the season but Granada Hills High was finally tested in the City Championship girls’ tennis final on Friday at Warner Center Tennis Club.

The Highlanders passed their final exam with flying colors.

Granada Hills’ depth and experience proved a little too much for Carson, 4-3, giving Coach Ron Wood his first City championship since taking over the program in 1994.

The Highlanders’ only other titles came in 1982 and 1983.

“I thought it would probably be 4-3 either way,” Wood said. “It’s a shame someone had to lose. This is what high school tennis should be all about.”

Granada Hills (16-0) lost more sets in the final that it had in its previous 15 matches.

The Highlanders had won 125 out of 126 sets heading into the final. Their closest match all season was their first, a 6-1 nonleague victory over Van Nuys.

“We hadn’t been challenged all year and all of a sudden we’re in a dogfight,” Wood said. “I was proud of the way we pulled through.

“Even the girls who lost played tough.”

The decisive match proved to be at No. 1 doubles, where the junior tandem of Caryn Linder and Shannon Slotnick outlasted Maria Domingo and Lynn Zabala, 6-1, 4-6, 7-5.

“I wasn’t aware that it was coming down to us,” Slotnick said. “But I didn’t want it to be like last year.

“It feels good to win.”

Granada Hills had seven players back from a team that was City runner-up last year.

Wood has to feel good about his team’s chances next year with seven of 10 players returning.

“We’ve just had everything fall into place this year,” Wood said. “We lost three girls to graduation and the girls who replaced them were comparable to the ones we lost.

“Next year, we’ll have four of our six doubles players returning and three of our four singles players back.”

Freshman Judith De Vera of Carson (15-1) defeated junior Jasmin Dao, 6-2, 6-3, at the No. 1 spot. But De Vera is not a typical high school tennis player--she’s ranked 17th in the nation by the USTA in the girls’ 14-and-under age group.

Third-seeded Carson was nearly as dominant as Granada Hills during the regular season, winning the Marine League without dropping a single set. The Colts dethroned Palisades, the three-time champion, in the semifinals Wednesday.

“We hadn’t lost a set all year until we played Palisades,” Coach Gordon Emi of Carson said. “In this situation, you would like your players to have a little more experience.

“I guess we’re getting our experience right now.”

Carson won the City 3-A title in 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1994, and reached the final in that division in 1995, 1996, and 1997 before moving up to the City bracket this year.

Senior Michal Zeituni finished her high school career undefeated in team play, pairing with Robin Meselson for a 6-3, 6-3 victory at No. 2 doubles for the Highlanders.

INVITATIONAL

Fairfax 4, Van Nuys 3 -- Freshman Yelena Olshanskaya defeated Diana Friedland, 2-6, 6-2, 7-5, in a three-hour match at No. 1 singles to notch the Lions’ clinching point.

“I had never played her before,” said Friedland, ranked No. 15 in Southern California in the girls’ 16s. “In the second set she changed her game and started hitting more balls in. I couldn’t adjust to what she was doing.”

Olshanskaya, ranked 19th in the girls’ 14s, broke her older opponent four times in the third set.

The Wolves (11-5) lost only 10 games in sweeping all three doubles matches.