Pirates top Roadrunners 5-4 to advance to CCCAA State Championships

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College women's tennis team was pushed to the limit on Saturday, but in the end, the Pirates pulled out a 5-4 win over College of the Desert in the Southern California Regional Championships.

Trailing after doubles, 2-1, the Pirates (21-0) needed to dig deep in singles play and managed to pick up four key victories to advance to the CCCAA State Championship, which will be held on Wednesday at 10 a.m. at Ventura College. 

"It was a hard-fought win and I'm so proud of my team," OCC head coach Chris Ketcham said. "We were hoping to win 2-of-3 in doubles, so that put us in a bit of a hole, but the girls never stopped fighting and we managed to pull this one out."

Much like most team tennis victories for the Pirates this year, the depth of the squad was just too much for the opposition to handle and that was exactly the case on Saturday against the Roadrunners (10-2). The No. 3 doubles team of Camila Nelson and Leanne Pascua rallied from an early deficit to pull out an 8-6 win over COD's Ayono Tsuchia and Abbie Corado ... a win that proved vital for the Pirates to survive and advance.

In singles play, both teams traded straight-set wins with OCC's Sedona Smith (6-1, 6-1) and Pascua (6-0, 6-3) coming through for the Pirates. But with that, OCC still trailed 4-3 with two singles matches remaining. 

In the No. 2 singles match, Nelson was in a battle with COD's Emunah Daffon, while at No. 5 singles, Olivia Sipiora was pushed to a third set with Tsuchia and the Pirates needed BOTH matches to keep their undefeated season alive.

After winning the first set 7-6 (5) and dropping the second set, 4-6, Sipiora turned up her physical play and blew away Tsuchia, hitting winner after winner en route to a 6-0 third-set victory, tying the afternoon matchup at 4-4.

With just one match remaining, all eyes turned to Nelson vs. Daffon. Nelson won the opening set, 6-4, before Daffon evened things with a 6-3 win in the second set. 

Both players broke each other's serves early on and with the set tied 3-3, Nelson broke Daffon again. Leading 0-40, a pair of COD winners made the game tighter at 30-40, but a solid slicing forehand by Nelson forced Daffon to hit her shot into the net, giving Nelson the game and a 4-3 advantage.

With Nelson back on serve and the game tied at 30-30, the OCC freshman picked a good time for her best serve of the day, ripping an ace to go up 40-30. From there Nelson took advantage of the new rule change that allows for serves to COUNT if they touch the net (a "let" serve). Her serve banged off the top of the net and fell on the COD side of the court for an ace, a game win and a 5-3 set advantage. 

From there, Nelson finished things off with another break of Daffon's serve to take the third set, 6-3, giving OCC its 21st straight win with no losses.

The Pirates will now head up to Ventura College for the California Community College Athletic Association Women's Tennis State Championship, where they will take on American River on Wednesday at 10 a.m. The Beavers (13-3) captured the Northern California title by topping College of the Sequoias, 5-4.

A win will give the Pirates their 11th women's tennis state championship and the school's 98th state championship in its 75-year history.