Laguna Beach girls’ tennis triumphs for first CIF title in 18 years
The Laguna Beach High girls’ tennis team won exactly one match last year.
Adding five players to the squad made a difference, but so did the camaraderie the Breakers displayed.
Second-year Coach Robert Klugman saw it again Friday afternoon at the Claremont Club, with junior No. 3 singles player Hannah Nguyen as the last player on court.
“You could see the way they were cheering for her,” Klugman said. “This is what team tennis is about, it’s why I do this job. It’s not about winning, it’s about the support you have.”
Winning did also come for the Breakers, who finished off their remarkable transformation holding a CIF championship plaque. Top-seeded Laguna Beach edged No. 3 Calabasas 10-8 for the CIF Southern Section Division 2 title.
It’s the program’s 12th CIF title, but first since 2005.
“It was a change,” senior captain Kendyl Beresford said of the improvement. “I’m really glad about all the new teammates we got. We honestly were such a great team and worked really well together. We worked really hard every day to get to where we are. It was a good journey.”
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo-bound senior Jessica MacCallum and her freshman sister Rebecca MacCallum both swept in singles for the Wave League champion Breakers (20-3) in impressive fashion.
Jessica swept 6-2, 6-0, 6-0, including an impressive win over Calabasas sophomore Giana Mucci in the first round. Rebecca won 6-0, 6-1, 6-3.
“I was just going into the first match wanting to do my best, trying to get as many games, because that’s really what counts in the end,” Jessica MacCallum said. “Obviously, the support from my team was really nice, and I think that really got me through as well. It was a nice match and definitely gave us momentum.”
MacCallum understood how long it’s been since the last time the Breakers held the championship plaque. She was born in that same year, 2005.
“I was saying it on the bus,” she said with a laugh. “It was like destiny.”
Every player or doubles team won at least once for the Breakers. At No. 1 doubles, sophomore Ava Chadha and freshman Ryan Levine won once, as did Beresford and her sophomore partner Izzy Lobosko at No. 2 doubles.
Calabasas (15-4), which got doubles sweeps from the teams of Sydney Smith and Emma Penev, as well as Charli Kaaya and Nava Aminian, did not go quietly. The match was tied 3-3 after the first round and 6-6 after the second round.
It remained tied 8-8 late, when the Breakers relied on their No. 3 players to take them home. The No. 3 doubles team of juniors Chloe Balliet and Lola Sabol earned a 6-3 victory for the ninth set win.
Laguna Beach had a large enough games lead to clinch the match, but moments later Nguyen topped Calabasas’ Tea Damascus by the same 6-3 score for good measure. Her teammates rushed the court to celebrate.
“It was nerve-wracking, but also I was happy at the same time because everyone was cheering for me,” Nguyen said. “I just felt like it was fun. It’s the best feeling. Everyone’s supporting each other and we’re all hugging at the end.”
Both of Laguna Beach’s senior starters, Jessica MacCallum and Beresford, had older sisters on the 2018 Breakers team that was edged by Huntington Beach in the Division 3 title match. Ainsley Beresford showed up Friday to support her younger sister and alma mater.
“Oh my God, we won,” Kendyl Beresford said as she walked off the court with her teammates. “We really won.”
“Just because my sister came so close, I wanted it,” she added later. “I know we hadn’t really won and had a really strong team since then, so I wanted it really bad. I think all of us did.
“It’s surreal. All of the practice and hard work finally paid off.”
Klugman gave all the credit to his players and let them cherish the moment. He knew how they felt, as he said he was on a state championship boys’ tennis team at New Rochelle High School in New York in 1980.
“They’ll have these memories for the rest of their lives,” he said. “I still talk to my teammates about it.”
The season is slated to continue for five of the Breakers players in the CIF Southern Section Individuals tournament that begins with preliminaries on Nov. 20. The MacCallum sisters were Wave League doubles champions, with Beresford and Levine as doubles finalists and Chadha as a singles finalist.
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