Sailors win title again

After losing at Tesoro, 12-6, in a nonleague season opener on Thursday, the Newport Harbor High girls’ tennis team had to regroup.

The Sailors knew they would face the Titans again in the Lightning Invitational tournament hosted by Sage Hill School.

As it turned out, Newport Harbor did more than just regroup at the five-team tournament. It got to take home some hardware.

Coach Kristen Case’s Sailors went undefeated in the 13th annual tournament that concluded Saturday at The Tennis Club Newport Beach, winning it for the third time in four years.

Many people came up big for Newport Harbor. Jenn Kingsley and Nicole Knickerbocker were undefeated in both singles and as a doubles team, and earned doubles MVP honors. Co-captain Annie LaGrandeur, Olivia Zehnder, Kendall Cosenza and Anna Burke were also all-tournament team selections.

“Coming off last year, I know we didn’t do as well as we wanted to [in this tournament],” LaGrandeur said. “And we opened up our season [with a loss] to Tesoro. I think that really fired us up, both of those factors coming into today. We really wanted to come out here big and show everybody that we’re here to play. I think we definitely delivered and I think we definitely got what we were after.”

Sage Hill, which finished third, was led by all-tournament team selections Jaclyn Gerschultz, Amira Tarsadia, Tess Alexander and Connie Yu.

In the format featuring five singles set and four doubles sets, the Sailors split 2-2 in doubles with Tesoro earlier Saturday. Kingsley and Knickerbocker, as well as LaGrandeur and Zehnder, got the wins.

When it came time to play defending tournament champion Tesoro again in singles, both teams needed three set wins. They both got two wins in the first four sets completed. Kingsley beat Brenda Romo, 6-4, at No. 2 singles and Knickerbocker beat Kayla Whip, 6-3, at No. 3 singles. Tournament singles MVP Kaitlyn Nguyen and Hannah Haas earned victories for Tesoro, although Cosenza nearly came back from a 5-0 deficit before falling to Haas, 6-4.

It came down to the No. 3 singles match, where the Sailors’ Anna Burke — who usually plays doubles with Cosenza — was playing Tesoro’s Karli McCarthy.

Burke earned the 6-3 victory, giving the Sailors the 5-4 win over runner-up Tesoro. Since they had a 3-1 lead over St. Margaret’s after doubles, the Sailors needed just two more sets in singles to finish undefeated and win the tournament.

They got three, from Knickerbocker, Burke and Cosenza. With the outcome already decided, Kingsley’s match was stopped before it went to a tiebreaker.

Kingsley and Knickerbocker had played doubles together in practice just a handful of times, but they were very successful in the tournament. “We have a really good bond,” Kingsley, a junior, said of playing with the freshman Knickerbocker. “It was pretty easy to step in with her, and she’s really easy to work with.”

Courtney Howarth (the other senior co-captain) and Elle Zielinski also contributed in doubles throughout the weekend, as did sophomore Hannah Blower at No. 1 singles. Blower is one of the few contributors for Newport who wasn’t on varsity last year, but she was part of the Sunset League-winning JV doubles team last year with Hannah Standt.

It was a long day of tennis that lasted more than seven hours. But at the end, the Sailors were alone on top.

“We’re big about not worrying about who’s on the other side of the net, just play our game,” Howarth said. “I think we did that today ... [winning this tournament] definitely sets us up. We came in here obviously wanting to win it. We’ve worked our [behinds] off all summer, and this is just one of those things that proved to all of us that we have what it takes.”

Sage Hill, meanwhile, was satisfied with its placing. It finished ahead of both of its fellow CIF Southern Section Division 2 teams, league rival St. Margaret’s and Canyon.

“We didn’t have exactly the right lineups, but we’re looking at everybody,” Sage Coach A.G. Longoria said. “The intel was more important than being a little bit better. As long as we beat those two [schools], I was happy with it.”