GIRLS’ TENNIS : Bartelt Is Expecting to Make It Her Year

MISSION VIEJO —  She’s not particularly fast. Her serves don’t send the radar gun haywire. And her physical appearance won’t intimidate opponents.

Oh, almost forgot. There’s also that killer instinct thing, the one that makes Page Bartelt of Capistrano Valley High one of the top youth tennis players in the country.

“I think Page has shown a strong, strong desire to win and the tenacity to play girls who are maybe more gifted tennis players,” said Kerry Leander, Capistrano Valley coach. “You look at her and you don’t think she’s that great. She plays a lot tougher than she looks.”

Bartelt, a thin 5-foot-8 senior, is the top singles player on a Cougar team that figures to challenge for the title this season in the always strong South Coast League. Now 17, she was ranked 14th in the U.S. Tennis Assn. national ratings in the 16-and-under division last year and fourth in Southern California.

She was 44-5 in limited duty last season with Capistrano Valley, which advanced to the Southern Section 4-A semifinals after finishing second in league to Dana Hills. Bartelt’s high school career record is 155-20.

But this could be her best year yet--and her most ambitious.

“I’d like for our team to win league this year and possibly win Southern Section or reach the finals,” Bartelt said. “I’d like to win the singles title.”

Pretty lofty goals, considering that newly opened Palos Verdes Peninsula (an amalgamation of the defunct Palos Verdes, Miraleste and Rolling Hills high schools) belongs to the section and features some of the best junior players in the nation. Many of them, including Janet Lee, the USTA’s top-ranked player in 14-and-under girls’ division last year, and Nicole London, No. 22 in the 18-and-under, carried Palos Verdes to the 4-A championship last season.

“They could probably give some college teams a run for the money,” Leander said.

Leander will get a close look at Peninsula on Sept. 18, when the Panthers visit Capistrano Valley for a nonleague match. The Cougars, however, will be without Bartelt, who will undergo a tonsillectomy the day before the match.

“They (tonsils) are so big that they block my breathing when I play,” Bartelt said.

When she returns, Bartelt’s aspirations of winning the league, and perhaps even the singles crown will face stiff resistance from Dana Hills and its standout, Nicole Elliott. But the Cougars appear to have the edge in experience with six returning players.

Individually, Bartelt won’t have to contest with Anne Mall, the section’s singles champion last year while at Dana Hills. Mall, who recently won the Canadian Junior Open title and was runner-up at the U.S. Open junior championships last week, plays for UCLA.

This summer, Bartelt tuned up for the high school season by playing in the 18-and-under division at the National Clay Court championships in Memphis, Tenn., where she won four matches and finished in the top 25 of 128 players. She also played singles and doubles on the Southern California team that took second place behind the Southern squad at the 15-team USTA Intersectional Championships in Fairfield, Calif.

The tournaments gave her experience against top competition and helped sharpen skills that Leander said are already excellent.

“She’s worked extremely hard on her game,” Leander said. “The best part of her game is the groundstrokes. She’s very consistent with them. They are her bread and butter. And she plays a very good net game.”

Bartelt has been grinding it out on the tennis courts since she was 7, when her two older sisters got her interested in the sport.

“They played a lot, so I started playing,” Bartelt said. “Before I knew it, I was playing nationals.”

By next year, Bartelt hopes to be playing on the college level. Several schools, among them UCLA, Arizona State, Arizona and California, have shown interest. She plans to visit campuses in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, though, there’s the matter of helping the Cougars win the league championship.

“I think our chances are pretty good,” Bartelt said. “There’s a lot of talent (on the team). There’s a lot of depth there.”

Girls’ Tennis

Top Teams

Capistrano Valley, Corona del Mar, Dana Hills, Edison, El Dorado, El Toro, Estancia, Foothill, Fountain Valley, Irvine, Katella, Laguna Beach, Laguna Hills, Los Alamitos, Mater Dei, Rosary, Santa Margarita, Sunny Hills, University, Valencia.

Top Players

Trisha Abe (Mater Dei), Erika Anhood (Corona del Mar), Erika Asmuss (Mater Dei), Page Bartelt (Capistrano Valley), Rachel Buenviaje (Brea-Olinda), Kim Conter (Mater Dei), Joyce Cruz (Rosary), Nicole Elliott (Dana Hills), Jeanette Fylpaa (University), Mandy Gomez (Rosary), Susan Huberman (Los Alamitos), Alison Light (Capistrano Valley), Valerie Palmero (Los Alamitos), Tempa Rainey (El Dorado), Alessandra Schinaia (Irvine), Milvia Schinaia (Irvine), Lisa Shulga (Capistrano Valley), Farrah Tierney (Capistrano Valley), Debbie Vonusa (Katella), Anna Zaricki (Dana Hills).

Important Dates

Nov. 23, Southern Section individual sectionals; Nov. 26, Southern Section team finals; Dec. 5-6, Southern Section individual finals.

Notes

Two of the leading singles players in the county the past three seasons won’t play this year. Anne Mall, the Southern Section singles champion in 1990 while at Dana Hills, is at UCLA and playing well in international junior competitions. Keri Phebus of Corona del Mar, the section champion the previous two years, will bypass her last year of eligibility to concentrate on junior tennis. . . . Capistrano Valley, No. 3 in the Division 4-A preseason CIF coaches’ rankings, features four seniors with 100 or more career victories: Light (161-33), Bartelt (155-20), Shulga (116-47) and Tierney (108-28, mostly in doubles). . . . Sunny Hills, the defending 2-A champion, is the only team ranked first in its division in the CIF poll. Rosary did not graduate any players from last year’s Angelus League championship squad and figures to be awfully strong, yet the Royals didn’t get much respect from the coaches, who ranked them 10th in the 2-A division. That seems low for a team with the likes of the talented Cruz and Gomez.