Santa Monica Corsairs Fall to Ventura Pirates
Under clear, blue skies, the Corsairs took on Ventura City College Pirates, being their seventh match of this season. Both teams came out fired up, ready to rally and give a fight on the tennis courts.
On court number-three, Ventura College Allie DeMarco got the first win for the pirates, with a solid score of 6-1, 6-1 against Corsair Amanda Golling. “Not my best match, but I look forward to my next one,” Golling said with a smile on her face. Golling remained calm and positive throughout the entire match, even though it was not her greatest performance. Golling has only been playing tennis for five months. “I took a tennis class and the coach told me to think about playing for the team, so I decided to do it and joined,” Golling said.
The second win was on court number-two, also for Ventura College, where Alyssa Powell won 6-1, 6-1 against SMC Sophomore Mina Girit. “Although I lost, I feel happy, it was a fun match,” Girit said. Both players cramped during the match, due to the long rallies and lots of running they endured throughout the sets.
On court number-one, top SMC player Abby Mullins, who attended the prestigious Weil Tennis Academy during her sophomore year of high school, gave quite the show during her match. From volley-to-volley points to long baseline cross-court points, both athletes played great tennis.
Although SMC player Mullins started off a bit slow, she was able to gain focus and loosen up and started hitting solid forehands. Both players were hitting the ball with confidence and moving each other around. The rallies were long but Mullins stepped it up and was able to close out the match with a final score of 6-3, 6-2 against Pirate Lea Meschke.
At number-four singles, Ventura College Jule Lauinger took the win with a 6-0, 6-1 against Susan Talreja. On court number-five, Pirate Tricia McClain won the match with a solid 6-0, 6-0 final score over SMC sophomore Kiho Hirayama. SMC took the win over Pirate Chelsea Carmichael, the final score was 6-1, 6-1, leaving the overall score at 4-2 with the Pirates leading.
Meanwhile in the doubles competition, due to a change in the Corsairs lineup, there were only two double matches being played out. SMC’s top-player player Abby Mullins was taken out of the doubles, which bumped up the line up; this meant automatically losing one of the doubles points, leaving the overall score at 5-2.
Both doubles matches had great, long rallies with a lot of variety, from baseline rallies to closing out points at the net. Although the Corsairs had some good points, it was not enough to win the matches. The pirates took both wins in doubles, ending the match with a 7-2 score. The overall series ended with a 6-3 decision for Ventura over the Corsairs.
This year the Corsairs are starting up fresh; after losing most of their premier players from last year, they are building up a new team with a few girls that have just started playing tennis. But one thing that was clear on the courts was that all of them gave out their best and fought for every point.