Tennis Falls in Finals

From the moment the first ball was struck, it was clear that the City Section championship the Palisades High girls tennis team had set its sights on winning would have to wait another year. For the second year in a row, defending champion Granada Hills got off to a fast start and rode its early momentum to a decisive 5-2 victory last Friday afternoon at Balboa Tennis Center in Encino. The top-seeded Highlanders (14-2) needed only one hour and 15 minutes to clinch their third consecutive City title, winning the first four matches in the best-of-seven format. A key match was at No. 1 doubles, where Palisades’ Yasmir Navas and Brittany O’Neil lost to Granada Hills’ Alex Margolin and Kristine Mayor, 6-0, 6-4. ‘I watched the first set and their girls were just playing out of their minds,’ Pali coach Bud Kling said. ‘They were hitting the lines on every point. That sort of set the tone for the whole day.’ Lotte Kiepe and Mary Logan came from behind to win, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, at No. 2 doubles and Sarah Jurick paired with Sara Yankelevitz to post a 6-3, 6-4 victory at No. 3 doubles for the second-seeded Dolphins (13-3), but by then the outcome had already been decided. The most compelling match, and the last to finish, was at No. 1 singles where Granada Hills’ Roxanne Plata dealt Pali’s Krista Slocum her first loss of the season, 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-4. ‘I was mad at myself for blowing a 5-2 lead in the first set, but that fired me up in the next set,’ said Slocum, a junior whose steady play made up for the loss of last season’s top player Olivia Colman, who left Pali to enroll in an independent study program just before the season started. ‘I usually don’t play anyone as aggressive as Roxanne. She took more chances and dictated the points in the third set and that’s why she won.’ Although none of the Dolphins wanted to admit it, experience might have made a difference. Granada Hills had five seniors to Palisades’ zero. ‘We were confident and really thought we could win,’ Slocum said. ‘But hopefully we’ll have another chance next year.’