Yelsey Outlasts Reitz in Singles Final

Before they took the court in the Pacific Coast League girls’ tennis finals, Corona del Mar teammates Anne Yelsey and Brittany Reitz knew they had qualified for the Southern Section individual singles tournament.

But the players battled as if they were playing for the section singles title. Yelsey and Reitz went at it for nearly 2 1/2 hours before Yelsey emerged with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory Thursday at Costa Mesa Tennis Center. The turning point came in the fifth game of the second set, a 13-deuce, 25-minute affair that Yelsey eventually won to go up 4-1.

“That was such an exhausting game,” said Yelsey, a sophomore. “Whoever won that was going to have a lot of confidence. That was definitely the longest game I’ve ever played and one of the toughest matches I’ve played in a while.”

That game and a bout with bronchitis seemed to sap Reitz’s energy in the third set. She began to miss easy overheads and hit several ground strokes into the net.

“No excuses, but the bronchitis contributed to me not being able to keep the energy going all the way through,” said Reitz, a junior. “But Anne definitely deserved it. She played better than I did.”

Reitz, who became eligible only two weeks ago after transferring from St. Margaret’s, was simply happy to qualify for the section tournament by beating University’s Aimee Kim, 6-3, 6-3, in the semifinals.

Some players and coaches wondered what Reitz was doing in the tournament. League coaches voted last year to ban any player who had not played at least 21 league sets. But the rule never made it into the league constitution because the PCL principals didn’t want the boys’ and girls’ teams with a different set of rules. Boys’ players are eligible for the PCL tournament as long as they play half of the league matches or 15 sets.

Laguna Beach Coach Michelle Foster argued that Reitz should not have been eligible.

“It’s obvious Reitz is the [better] player than Aimee Kim,” Foster said. “But the whole point of the rules was to get players who represented our league. Brittany Reitz only played 15 sets. It’s not fair to Aimee Kim, who played all year.”

Said Corona del Mar Coach Andy Stewart: “All I’m doing is following the rules. They do work in my favor this year. But Brittany played in as many matches as she could. And don’t you want the best players representing the league?”

In the doubles final, Corona del Mar’s Leslie Damion and Brittany Holland defeated Caroline Tucker and Meghan McGillvray of Laguna Beach, 6-1, 6-2.