Grizzlies growing steadily 8-1
GHHS drops first ESL match 8-1
Granite Hills High School girls tennis team opened East Sequoia League play with an 8-1 loss to Woodlake at home Tuesday.
The Grizzlies No. 3 Paola Jacuinde defeated her opponent 8-6 in singles to pick up the team’s lone win. Jacuinde started the set up 4-1 before dropping back-to-back games. The two traded the next three games until Woodlake’s player was able to tie the set at 5-all. Jacuinde dropped one last game and fell behind 6-5 before winning the next three straight. “She has shown a lot of growth this year, so far,” GHHS head coach Lane Johnson. “She came out one day and she played her very first match — two days later — and she got a win. So she’s showing a lot of growth.”
Growth will be theme of the season for the Grizzlies (0-1 ESL) as the team and their firstyear head coach work through the growing pains of having several inexperienced players.
“Right now at this point, I’m trying to teach the girls how to play tennis,” Johnson said. “Most of our girls have never played. They’ve never been around tennis at all, never had any exposure. So just trying to teach them the game, how to hit a ball in, and then we can work on technique and special nuances of tennis.” However, Johnson was posi-
tive about the team’s growth so far this season. She said, “I’ve seen a lot of improvement from the first day ‘til now. We’re what a month in? And I’m seeing the girls show a lot of growth.”
Despite the team’s youth and missing two of their top players, Granite Hills had several close matches against Woodlake (1-0 ESL).
In singles, No. 1 Sara Lor lost 8-4 but stayed within a game of her opponent until the last four games. In the No. 2 doubles match, Jacuinde and Delssy Vargas lost their tiebreaker match 7-1 after holding on to a one-game lead for nearly the entire set. Also, Katherine Valery and Valeria Galvez were able to keep their match close and within a game until the last three for an 8-7 loss.
“It was good,” Johnson said about the first ESL match. “I like that we had several preseason matches but it’s hard. We were missing a couple of players today so it’s hard missing your No. 1 (Kellyann Whited) and No. 4 (Wendy Moreno). But it was good. I felt like the girls had a lot of good shots and I’m seeing improvement.”
Other results for the Grizzlies was No. 2 Leelu Amparano losing 8-4, No. 4 Vargas losing 8-2, No. 5 Arianna Anaya losing 8-1 and No. 6 Yashaira Gonzalez losing 8-1 in singles. The team’s other loss came in the No. 1 doubles when Amparano and Lor lost 8-0.
Granite Hills next match is a non-league contest against Kern Valley today at 4 p.m.