Corona del Mar girls’ tennis edges Huntington Beach, joins Oilers at top of Surf League
Surf conditions can be unpredictable.
The Corona del Mar and Huntington Beach high school girls’ tennis teams have been the class of the Surf League in recent years, with neither team really able to dominate.
Each match has been close and tense. On Tuesday afternoon, players from both teams sat on the far end of the third singles court at Huntington Beach High, as the sun played peek-a-boo between the trees further to the north.
CdM freshman Polina Briggs rallied to defeat Huntington Beach senior Kayla Friedland in the last set on court. Her teammates rushed her to celebrate.
CdM had earned a 10-8 victory, pulling into a tie with Huntington Beach atop the league standings with two matches remaining. Both teams are now 3-1 in league.
Technically CdM had already won the match as the final set drew longer, with a 9-8 sets advantage and a 69-63 games advantage at the time. But that final win, which Briggs captured 6-4, sure felt good for the freshman.
“It was really difficult because she was really consistent,” Briggs said. “I think I just tired her out, and she started making more mistakes. But my team being there to cheer me on helped. Every time I won a point, they just screamed.”
After Huntington Beach won its first Surf League title in 2020-21, CdM returned to the top last year. This year, the teams appear destined to share the crown, though CdM would have a playoff seeding tiebreaker due to total head-to-head sets won.
Huntington Beach edged CdM, 9-9 and 83-78 on games, in the teams’ first league meeting on Oct. 6.
CdM senior Shea Tomac, who won two doubles sets with freshman Isabel Roytman, said coach Jamie Gresh motivated the Sea Kings before Tuesday’s match.
“He was like, ‘I feel like you guys are the stronger team, I really feel like you can step it up right here and win it for us,’” Tomac said. “That was really motivating ... It’s always been super-close [against Huntington Beach]. Last year, we won both times, but they were both 9-9, counting games. It’s always such a big deal when we get to beat them.”
Tomac and Roytman were paired for the first time for CdM (14-2), ranked No. 5 in the CIF Southern Section Open Division/Division 1 poll. It worked against Huntington Beach (9-3), ranked No. 16.
“It really worked when I was at the net and she was back,” Tomac said. “That’s our best positioning.”
Seniors Cate Montgomery and Lauren Jones won twice in doubles for the Sea Kings, while senior Louise Eriksson and freshman Sasha Briggs won once.
Sophia Andrea-Birca and Polina Briggs each won twice in singles, while Lillia Edalat subbed in for a singles win in the third round.
Huntington Beach got an easy singles sweep from junior Yen Nhi Huynh-Nguyen (6-0, 6-1, 6-0), a CIF Individuals singles quarterfinalist last year. Friedland won an important set in the second round, beating Sasha Fellner 6-4 to forge a 6-6 match tie headed into the final round.
First-year Huntington Beach coach Megan Wilson liked to see that fight. Wilson, who played at Edison High her freshman year before graduating from Connelly High in Anaheim in 2003, is back in the high school tennis realm. She said she got back into the sport during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I wanted to come back and be a mentor,” she said. “I feel like high school is tough as a young woman, and there’s a lot of pressures. I wanted to be able to guide and coach and mentor women through some of their formative years, and tennis is a great way to build a lot of life skills that they’re going to use.”
Senior Bella Moore and junior Sophia Straub won two doubles sets for the Oilers. So did junior Ella Wiseman and sophomore Le Nhi Huynh-Nguyen.
“The girls played their game,” Wilson said. “They were really confident on the court and really took on the offense, versus just trying to hang in there and feeling really scared ... They could have very easily came out on the court and said, ‘CdM is much better than us, we’re just going to try our hardest to stay in the game’ and lost 16-2, but they didn’t. They rose to the occasion.”
CdM hosts Laguna Beach on Thursday, while Huntington Beach travels to Newport Harbor.
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