Sage Hill girls' tennis storms past rival St. Margaret's to reach Division 3 final

Sage Hill doubles players Ava Herin and Kana Byrd, from left, celebrate winning their first match in the CIF semifinals.

By Matt SzaboStaff Writer

Nov. 10, 2022 7:35 PM PT

The Sage Hill School girls’ tennis team has not lost to rival St. Margaret’s since 2014.

This year, the teams are in different leagues for the first time. The Lightning joined the Pacific Coast League, while the Tartans are in the Orange Coast League.

They still managed to meet Thursday afternoon in the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 3 playoffs.

The winning streak continues for the top-seeded Lightning, who earned a 13-5 victory over the No. 4-seeded Tartans to advance to the CIF title match.

“It was kind of cool keeping our streak going,” Sage Hill senior Kana Byrd said. “It’s cool to continue that school tradition but in such an important setting. This is a big deal for us to go to the finals and advance.”

Sage Hill doubles player Kana Byrd hits a volley during Thursday's match against St. Margaret's.

Sage Hill (19-6) will play a new league rival, No. 2-seeded Northwood (12-8), for the Division 3 crown Friday at 1:40 p.m. at the Claremont Club. The teams split two league meetings this season.

Sage Hill is making its first CIF finals appearance since 2011, and sixth overall. The Lightning have one CIF title in program history, winning the Division V title in 2005.

Doubles was a strength Thursday for Sage Hill, which swept all nine doubles sets. It wasn’t easy, though, as five of the wins came by scores of 6-4 or closer.

The No. 1 doubles team of Byrd and fellow senior Ava Herin won the last five games of their first-round match, rallying for a 6-4 win over St. Margaret’s No. 1 team of Annabel Thiel and Rylee Carlson.

In the second round, it was seniors Sunny Sun and Aryana Shamlou that won a tiebreaker set over the Tartans’ Emily Guerinot and Sophia Karahalios. That gave Sage Hill an 8-4 sets advantage.

Sage Hill's Alexia Beyrath hits a serve during Thursday's match against St. Margaret's.

“Our mentality was that this is our last home match ever, so we’re just going to have fun and not be stressed about it,” Sun said.

Sage’s No. 2 tandem of junior Eva Ro and sophomore Madeleine Carroll finished off the match with another tiebreaker win, over Alexa Edwards and Nadia Momtaz.

The doubles dominance helped Sage overcome the singles strength of St. Margaret’s, which had Audrey Harrington sweep in singles and Angela Liu win twice.

“It was up and down the whole day,” Lightning coach Whit Kenerson said. “A lot of the sets we won, we played clutch in the very end. But it was tight.”

Junior Arden Stobart won twice in singles for the winners, while freshmen Alexia Beyrath and Ella Wong won once each.