The season drew to a close for the surging La Quinta High School girls tennis team Thursday when they fell to Beverly Hills 11-7 in the CIF Southern Section semifinals.
“We did have a nice run, and I'm proud of our team,” Blackhawks head coach Michael Gates said. “I'm proud of the girls. They battled to the end — it just wasn't our day.”
The Blackhawks' usually unflappable senior trio of singles — Pamela Montez, Alexa Lee and Jaci West — were suddenly fallible when they came up against a determined Norman squad.
While Montez — who recently signed to play at UCLA in the fall — won all of her sets (6-2, 6-2, 6-3), Lee and West each dropped two, opening the door for Beverly Hills to win the match.
“We were a little rusty, and we couldn't really get it together, so we didn't play our best tennis,” Lee said. “It's always hard getting off a 2-hour bus ride and playing tennis.”
With only Montez winning in the first round, the Blackhawks started in a daunting 5-1 hole.
“It was really back and forth, but I wasn't playing at my best, and she won the more important points,” Lee said of her second-round loss (6-4). “There's nothing I can do about that.”
But an improved second round, with victories by Montez and La Quinta's No. 1 doubles team of Megan Lester-Katherine Dickerson (6-3), kept the Blackhawks alive 9-3 after two rounds in the best-of-18 match.
Needing to sweep the third round to force a tie break, the Blackhawks' outlook was bleak, but all three of their singles players won their sets: Montez 6-3, Lee 6-4, and West 6-4, keeping hope alive.
And with Lester-Dickerson on a roll and winning 6-2, La Quinta came up only two points short of a tie break when their Nos. 2 and 3 doubles teams were unable to secure victories in the third round.
“We knew their three singles had to play out of their minds to win — and they did; when they needed to play big they did,” Gates said. “Jaci (West) and Alexa (Lee) only won one set (each), and we were hoping to get a little more out of them — it was rough.”
Even Montez, who didn't drop a set all year in team play, was challenged more than usual.
“That's probably the most games anybody's gotten off of Pam (Montez) all season,” Gates added. “Their girls just really came to play.”
La Quinta finishes with a record of 17-3.
