Walnut shocks Sage Hill

WALNUT — A tiebreaker in tennis seems simple enough.

The first singles player or doubles team to seven points, win by two, takes the tiebreaker and the set.

But rarely does a tiebreaker seem to mean so much, like it did for the Sage Hill School girls’ tennis team Tuesday in a CIF Southern Section Division IV quarterfinal match.

The match-ending, 7-4 tiebreaker win for Walnut High seniors Elizabeth Yuen and Megan Corpuz was more like a heartbreaker. It enabled the host Mustangs to upset No. 2-seeded Sage Hill, 10-8, at Walnut High in an epic match that lasted nearly four hours.

The Lightning (16-5), the 2005 Division V champions, fail to advance to the CIF semifinals for the first time since 2002.

“We didn’t play exceptionally well,” said Sage Hill Coach A.G. Longoria, whose team returned just one starter (junior Jaclyn Smrecek) from last year. “The inexperience finally caught up with us.”

Had Sage Hill senior Kelly Chang and junior Isa-Marie Taskinen taken that last tiebreaker against Yuen and Corpuz, the score would have been tied, 9-9, but the Lightning would have prevailed on games, 84-74.

But it was a tremendous battle from Chang and Taskinen, who were down a break of serve twice late in the set before breaking back.

“I’m very proud of them,” Longoria said. “They battled. They’re not the reason we lost.”

A more important reason for Sage Hill’s downfall, Longoria said, was missing opportunities early.

The Lightning had an opportunity to go up, 5-1, after the first go-round. Instead, a singles player and doubles team couldn’t hold leads of 5-2 and 4-0 in their respective sets, and Sage Hill and Walnut ended the first go-round tied at 3-3.

Longoria said that hurt Sage Hill’s strategy of trying to jump on Walnut (18-1) early on, especially since the Lightning had won, 11-7, when the teams played in last year’s Division IV quarterfinals.

“I said [to the girls], ‘We need to get a big lead before they figure out we’re not as good as we were.’ ” Longoria said.

Sophomore Julia Blakeley was good, though. She swept her three singles sets at love, including an impressive win over Walnut No. 1 Stacey Peng, ranked No. 97 in Southern California in the girls’ 18-and-under division.

Smrecek and Sarah Choi could have possibly also swept in doubles, but Smrecek suffered a right wrist and elbow injury late in the second go-round as she went up for an overhead. Obviously in pain, she and Choi lost yet another tiebreaker to Yuen and Corpuz that gave Walnut a 7-5 sets lead at the time.

In the final tiebreaker of the night, with the daylight all but gone and the tennis court lights on, Yuen suffered leg cramps before finishing off the upset.

After the match, she had ice packs on both legs. But she was still laughing.

“I couldn’t move my legs. I was walking like this,” Yuen said, before waddling like a penguin.

Not as many laughs on the Sage Hill side, but Longoria still had praise for his team.

“I’m very, very proud of the girls,” he said. “Frankly, we went a lot farther than I thought we’d go.”

CIF Southern Section

Division IV

Quarterfinal

Walnut 10, Sage Hill 8

Singles – Blakeley (SH) def. Peng, 6-0, def. Kim, 6-0, def. Huynh, 6-0; Tucker (SH) lost, 1-6, 5-7, 3-6; Moore (SH) lost, 0-6, 4-6, won, 6-4.

Doubles – Goodman-Cochran (SH) lost to Yuen-Corpuz, 3-6, lost to Chan-Lu, 2-6, def. Carluen-Trinh, 6-1; Taskinen-Chang (SH) lost, 6-7 (4-7), 4-6, won, 6-2; Choi-Smrecek (SH) lost, 6-7 (3-7), (sub) Choi-Smart (SH) won, 7-5, Choi-Smrecek won, 6-0.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.