Irvine, CA — Great team effort by all 9 “red squad” girls who got out early and traveled up to north east Irvine this afternoon. Because we booked a double header for Frosh Soph today, all JSerra players at Northwood got to play 3 full sets of tennis! This match was even the whole afternoon: 3-3 after round 1; 6-6 after round 2; 9-9 at match end. Unfortunately, the game count differential was skewed in Northwood’s favor. Jacqueline Poli had a huge first round tie-breaker win in the first round, defeating their #3 singles player 6-5. You are never going to win the close matches if your #3’s can’t beat their #3’s. Great job! Brooke Bowman battled tough, not giving up after being down 1-4 in the 2nd round- almost forced a tie-break, which could have been huge. Bottom line, the never give up efforts today were exemplary, every game counts in close matches. A big shout out to Neeka Barkhordar who won 2 straight sets, after dropping the first set to their top player. Neeka played smart, convincing tennis this afternoon. Well done! Our # 3 doubles team of Shuyang Zhang and Chiara Manta got 3 full games off Northwood’s top doubles team in the 2nd round. This type of effort will pay great rewards on down the road. Thank you girls for your extra efforts this afternoon. Last but not least, kudos to our MVP’s for the day, 2 doubles teams who won all 3 sets played: Colette Chang with Faith Blower at #1 and Bryanna Noorian with Elliana Castro at line 2 doubles. They both beat the #3 team 6-3. They both beat the #2 team 6-5 (7-4). These 2 doubles teams brought in 3 of 4 tie-breaker wins! In all 3, they came from behind in the set to force the TB’s and won each tie-break by identical scores of 7-4. Additionally, in the 2nd round, Faith and Colette were down 0-4 and cranked out 7 straight points for the TB win! Not to be outdone, Elliana and Bryanna came back from 1-4 set score to force the TB and eventual win in round 1. A loss on paper, but a A+ win for effort and a fun match for the coach and parents to watch today! Next up: this Saturday afternoon, 2:30 start time at Newport Harbor, A & C travel squads.