CdM girls’ tennis team falls in semis

Jenna Moustafa thought she would be traveling out of state this week, not necessarily to Corona del Mar and Claremont.

The Harvard-Westlake junior had college visits planned to Yale and Harvard. Instead, she visited her old stomping grounds Wednesday in the semifinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 1 girls’ tennis playoffs.

Moustafa lived in Newport Coast and went to CdM middle school in seventh and eighth grade, before moving away to attend Harvard-Westlake.

“It was a bit strange, I have to say,” said Moustafa, whose older sisters Danna and Afaf both graduated from CdM, of returning on Wednesday. “It seems like a lot of the girls on their varsity team were in my year, so I knew a lot of them.”

Moustafa wasn’t really concerned with returning to CdM, though. She really just wanted to help lead the Wolverines to their first Division 1 title match.

The college visits can wait. Moustafa helped Harvard-Westlake make history after upsetting the No. 2-seeded Sea Kings, 11-7, in the semifinals at CdM.

Harvard-Westlake (14-1) will play top-seeded two-time defending champion Peninsula in the title match Friday at 10 a.m. at The Claremont Club. Peninsula beat Dana Hills, 15-3, in the other semifinal.

The season isn’t over for Corona del Mar (20-2), which will compete in the CIF USTA Southern Regional tournament beginning Tuesday. But the opportunity to make its first Division 1 title since 2008 is gone.

“I thought our girls really competed at their highest level so far,” CdM Coach Jamie Gresh said. “This was the best they’ve played all year ... I feel like we played really good tennis today, we just came up against a team that had a few extra weapons. That’s just a very, very deep team all the way through.”

Harvard-Westlake, led by first-year Coach Kristie Reynolds-Gipe, proved too strong. The Wolverines earned three sweeps. Freshman Amanda Chan swept in singles, as did the doubles teams of Moustafa and Sophia Genender, as well as Julliana Simon and Lara Mikhail.

Reynolds-Gipe put Simon, a senior bound for Brown University, in doubles after she played singles in Monday’s quarterfinal win over No. 2-seeded Mira Costa. CdM Coach Jamie Gresh also put a typical singles player, senior Siena Sharf, in doubles with sophomore Brooke Kenerson. And both teams staggered their doubles lineups.

The match was tied at 3-3 after the first round. CdM junior Jasie Dunk came up big to beat Harvard-Westlake freshman Jennifer Gadalov, a blue-chip prospect ranked No. 11 in the Southern California girls’ 16s. Dunk broke Gadalov’s serve to finish off a high-quality 7-5 victory.

But 7-5 was also the sets score that Harvard would take after the second round. CdM again needed to win a set at the end of the round to even the match, but this time it went the Wolverines’ way. Moustafa and Genender saved a set point in the tiebreaker of a 7-6 (9-7) victory over Sharf and Kenerson.

Sharf and Kenerson battled from a 3-0 deficit to force the tiebreaker. In it, they led 6-5, but Moustafa and Genender rallied. With the score 7-7 in the ‘breaker, Genender hit a running forehand that clipped the net cord and went over, setting up a set point. The Wolverines duo converted it on a winning volley by Moustafa.

Moustafa, probably the most outwardly emotional of the Wolverines’ players, loved it.

“Sports is emotion and momentum, and for us to get that and go into that [third] round one [set] up makes a big difference,” Reynolds-Gipe said. “All of a sudden, the pressure is off. I mean, you still have some pressure, but you’re not digging out of a hole as much. People, when they’re relaxed, they played better. They were still fired up though, and ready to go.

“She’s fun to watch though, isn’t she, little Jenna? She’s so fast and she just goes after everything. She’s an amazing little player.”

CdM was down just 54-51 in games after the second round, and still could have won the match with four set wins. Instead, it was the Wolverines who won four more sets. Simon and Lara Mikhail clinched the 10th set with a 6-3 doubles win over CdM’s Erica Chen and Camellia Edalat.

Dunk won two of three singles sets for CdM, while Danielle Willson and Roxy Mackenzie each won once. The Sea Kings swept Harvard-Westlake’s doubles team of Marissa Karo and Claire Tan, but could earn no other doubles victories despite some close sets.

For Moustafa, a trip to Claremont feels just as good as a trip to Harvard.

“After we won that quarterfinals match against Mira Costa, I knew I needed to stay,” she said. “I care so much about this team and I’m so excited that we’re doing so well. I couldn’t feel OK with leaving them behind.

“[Making the Division 1 championship match] is really exciting. Last year we didn’t even come close. We lost in the second round the last two years. I just feel like the whole atmosphere of the team this year [is that] everyone wants it so badly. I think that just really comes across in our matches. We’re always cheering each other on, and we’re always fighting until the last point. That paid off in that second doubles match.”