Irvine, CA — Almost 2/3 of our Frosh / Soph team (squads A & C) played the Portola Bulldogs this afternoon. We got clobbered or should I say “slobbered” on by the Bulldogs, but it was a true JV team; let me explain. We book this match every year because Coach Natasha (and Diana) run a high class program, with polite players and a great tennis facility with 8 courts. It is booked as a match for our FS girls to play the lower half of their JV team....however this year they only have 13 girls on JV. So 16 of the 18 sets were played against their JV starters. Hey, ...”as iron sharpens iron...” We played a regular 3x3 singles and 3x3 doubles, so most everybody got to play 2 sets. Because of the rotations in that format and substitution rules on JV, we had 1 player who stepped up and played 3 full sets of singles vs their best 3 players: thank you Lauren Smith👍 That also caused Isabella Birjandi and Aubrey Gibson to alternate in and play 2 of their starting singles players; thank you for your efforts today. We had some close play and longer sets on the doubles side. Although winless, our “St. Edwards” trio of Sofia Recupero, Alyssa Allado and Maddie Northway played some smart doubles at line 2, despite being outmatched. Kudos to our line #1 group of Annie Sherwood, who teamed with Judianne and Fionnuala today and made the Bulldogs work hard for every point. MVP honors today go to Judianne Kunst and Fionnuala McClain who defeated their #1 doubles team 6-3 in opening round of play! Well done. Next up: A & B squads at Huntington Beach next Monday, 3pm.