Orange Coast continues to roll through women's tennis playoffs with 5-1 win

3C2A Women's Tennis: Scoreboard l Playoff Bracket

COSTA MESA - The season remains very much alive for the Orange Coast College women's tennis team after the Pirates topped visiting Santa Monica, 5-1, in the second round of the Southern California Regional Team Playoffs on Tuesday at the OCC Tennis Complex.

"I thought our team played a great match," OCC head coach Chris Ketcham said. "They handled the pressure and their nerves and performed as we expect them to."

It was a relatively smooth afternoon of tennis for the top-seeded Pirates (21-1) as they rolled through doubles play in the opening session to grab the first three points of the contest. The No. 1 doubles team of Tori Varela and Olivia Sipiora had a bit of a scare, but pulled out a 9-8 win over Anaya Ayanbadejo and Yesugen Ganbaatar to preserve the 3-0 advantage. "Our #1 doubles played very well to get a 7-4 lead but unfortunately our level dropped and we lost 4 games in row for 7-8," Ketcham said. "However, we responded well played a solid game to go 8-8 and played some well-executed points to win the tiebreaker."

 In singles play, Coast continued its fine play and picked up wins from Varela (6-0, 6-0) and Leanne Pascua (6-1, 6-0) to earn the five points needed to advance. In the unfinished matches, Coast carried leads from Sipiora (6-1, 4-0), Rhea Gagnepain (6-2, 5-3) and Merrit Dubourdieu (6-2, 5-1) before play was stopped.

With the win, Coast will move on to the Southern California Regional Finals, where they will host a familiar foe, fellow Orange Empire Conference neighbor, Riverside City College. That match will take place on Saturday at OCC, beginning at 2 p.m. with the winner advancing to the state championships, where they will face the Northern California champion on April 24 at Ventura College.

This will be the third meeting between the two programs. The third-seeded Tigers (17-2) handed the Pirates their lone loss of the 2024 season with a 5-4 upset win at OCC on Feb. 29. Coast returned the favor on RCC with a 6-3 win at their place on March 19. Riverside earned this matchup on Saturday after going on the road and topping No. 2 Glendale College on Tuesday in Round 2 of the playoffs, 5-2.

"The SoCal finals will be a big match," Ketcham said. "We know each other's teams well having played two dual matches and some matches in our conference tournament. I feel we've been practicing well lately and we have remained healthy so I'm looking forward to our girls competing well this Saturday."

(Tony Altobelli, Orange Coast College Athletics)