Girls’ Tennis: Mitchell comes through for Eagles

The match was close, but Estancia High girls’ tennis junior Annie Mitchell wasn’t feeling great about her chances.

Mitchell lost her first two singles sets against rival Costa Mesa on Thursday. Her mom, Liz, tried to give her a pep talk before she began the third and final round.

“My mom was like, ‘You go out there and you kick butt,’” Mitchell said. “She’s very passionate about me playing tennis. And I was like, ‘Mom, I’m going to lose.’”

Liz had to watch her daughter’s match from afar. It was on the No. 3 singles court at Estancia High, away from the designated viewing area. And it stayed close the whole time.

In the end, Mitchell earned a 7-6 (7-5) victory over Costa Mesa’s Alexis Votran in the last set of the match completed. She helped the Eagles clinch a 10-8 win over the Mustangs in the second Battle for the Bell rivalry match.

The win was huge for Estancia (6-7, 3-3 in league), and not just because it came against rival Costa Mesa (5-7, 3-3). The teams will likely jockey for the third and final CIF playoff spot to come out of the Orange Coast League.

The Mustangs beat the Eagles on games, 9-9 (78-72), in the teams’ first meeting. But Thursday’s result ensured Estancia that it would have the tiebreaker over Costa Mesa should the teams finish tied in league.

Had Mitchell lost the tiebreaker against Votran, Estancia still would have won Thursday’s match on games, but would have lost the overall head-to-head tiebreaker with Costa Mesa.

Both Mitchell and Votran had their serves broken while serving for the set. In the ensuing tiebreaker, Mitchell went out to a 6-2 lead before Votran won three straight points. Mitchell, however, came back with a service winner to clinch the set.

Three of her teammates carried her off the court in celebration.

“I really got in my head a lot,” Mitchell said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got to focus now.’ I lose my focus really easily, and [Votran] has a lot of really good shots. She’s a strong player.

“To be honest, I kind of wanted to scream [after I won the match]. But that was going to be rude, so I didn’t do it.”

The match was close the whole way, tied at 3-3 after the first round and 6-6 after the second round. Seniors Lauren Weisser and Delani Guyot swept at No. 1 doubles, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, for Estancia. Guyot missed the first Battle for the Bell match against Costa Mesa last month with a broken left wrist suffered the night before the match. But she has played doubles in every match since then with a pink cast on (she is right-handed).

“That hurt, watching the match last time,” Guyot said. “I was so upset. But now, I’m able to play and I’m happy. There’s no way I’m going to miss half my senior year ... After losing the last Mesa [match], we were so mad. We became so pumped up for this one. We got a lot of students out here, made a lot of posters. We made sure this [match] was really, really important.”

Estancia senior Sarah Mack actually injured her knee during the last match against Costa Mesa, and was on crutches for a while. But she was back in action Thursday, and she swept with senior partner Julie Makley, 6-1, 7-5, 7-5.

Mack and Makley came back from a 5-2 deficit for their 7-5 win over Costa Mesa’s Crystal Henriquez and Nancy Le in the second round. In the third round, they rallied from a 4-1 deficit to beat the Mustangs’ Megan Flaherty and Emily Vu.

Senior Meg Tuxford won twice in singles for Estancia, and freshman Julianna Balducci won once.

Senior Gianna Valdez swept at No. 1 singles, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1, for Costa Mesa. Daisy Arroyo won twice at No. 2 singles, and all three of the Mustangs’ doubles teams won one set each.

“My girls always play great,” Costa Mesa Coach Meg Broccolo said. “They gave a lot of heart, they had great sportsmanship out there. That’s all I ask, that they do their best, and they did their best today. They gave it their all.”

Costa Mesa resumes league play Tuesday at Laguna Beach, while Estancia plays host to second-place Calvary Chapel. Estancia is hoping to get a better result than the first time it played Calvary Chapel, an 11-7 loss on Sept. 22 at Costa Mesa Tennis Center. Mack didn’t play in that match.

Estancia’s players certainly feel like they have momentum after Thursday’s big win over their rival. Perhaps Mack said it best.

“This is like the boss battle in a video game,” Mack said. “It’s Battle for the Bell.”