San Juan Capistrano, CA — Right off the start, we coaches want to give a BIG SHOUT OUT to our parents, grandparents and siblings for the best FAN SUPPORT ever! We needed you yesterday and you came through big time - thank you! Kirk and I both agree that today’s Frosh Soph match had the look and feel of a Varsity play-off match. This was a back and forth nail biter, with 4 tie-breaker sets (we won 2), some come-from-behind victories and a super exciting final set with everybody watching. Ava Smith and Elliana Castro forced a tie-breaker in the opening round and won it, giving us a 3-3 set score going into the 2nd round. Bryanna Noorian and Colette Chang won a tie-breaker to give us a 6-6 set score going into the 3rd and final round. At one time, early in round 3, we were literally losing on 5 of 6 courts. Then: Abby and Lucca fought back to beat their #4 team; Neeka and Faith fought back from 1-3 winning 5 straight games to beat their #2 team; and Jacqueline Poli with Chiara Manta came from behind to beat their #5 team 6-4. Unfortunately, we coaches were dragged into line call issues, and not able to rotate back up to court #6, where one of the longest, toughest sets of the day was going on. Elliana and Ava were losing 3-1 when I last left their court. Easily 35+ minutes later, it was the last set of the match still going on. Ava and Elliana had battled back to force a tie-breaker….which went back and forth, past 7 points, until the other team won 2 points in a row. Winning this set would have won this match for us. HOWEVER, losing this set did NOT lose this match today. Understand this: we lost on GAME COUNT! ….with several 2-6 and 1-6 scores being the difference :(. We are proud of Ava and Elliana’s efforts and results today. They won a tie-breaker earlier and got 5 games in this final set and gave us all an exciting conclusion to a great afternoon of tennis. Thank you all, players, parents and fans. Thank you several blue squad members who showed up to help out today, after defeating Capo Valley 11-7; and to Hailey Klein (JV) for playing today with Kaitlyn Donner, winning their opening set at #2 dubs. Next up: rematch at Aliso Niguel, Friday Oct. 15, 2:30pm.