Brad Hofmeister
Staff Writer
West Torrance may have brought its big guns on Tuesday, but the Mustangs were easily able to outduel them.
The Costa girls tennis team defeated the Warriors, 14-4, on Tuesday at home.
“As a team, I believe that we have a lot of spirit,” junior doubles player Grace Kendall said. “One of our main focuses is showing teammates support during matches and cheering them on, no matter what the result of the match is.”
Senior singles player Amy Gaal helped lead the team to victory by completing a sweep of her opponents in two games, both of which were 6-0.
“Overall, I think I played well,” Gaal said. “Since I was up a game, I really worked on improving my serve.”
Another standout singles player was senior Morgan Kelley. She made big plays against West’s number-one singles player and won her matches 6-3 and 6-2.
“I am happy with how I played and the outcomes of my matches,” Kelley said. “I focused on simply hitting the ball back and letting my opponent make the mistakes.”
Another leading singles player, Lena Nagy, won both of her matches as well. She won 6-2 and 6-3 and served two aces to secure her victories in both matches.
“All the girls played very well again today,” said Nagy. “It was a tough rally against a solid team, but we managed to pull through with another win.”
Doubles partners sophomore Kendall Lebbin and Kendall dominated against their opponents, winning their matches 6-0 and 6-3. All of the doubles teams that played did well at the net by staying aggressive throughout the entire match, Lebbin said.
“I think that our team played very well today, especially because everybody was in the mood to win,” Lebbin said. “We could improve on staying more consistent and being more focused on the court.”
Senior substitute Talia Horrow lost the point in two of her vital rallies in her performance and ultimately fell short to one of West’s top singles players, 6-0.
“Even though I didn’t win my match, I thought I fought very hard,” Horrow said. “I hit my serves very well, and they helped me earn points.”
The Mustangs were 6-1 overall after Tuesday and played Beverly Hills High school at Beverly Hills on Wednesday and and then at Peninsula on Thursday, but the results were unavailable at the time of publication. This game against West was a good warm up for tough upcoming matchups, and the team should expect challenging competition from its next opponents, Nagy said.
“We’re excited to play our rivals, Peninsula,” Nagy said. “Their team is weakened since a lot of players graduated, and we’re practicing everyday after school and working on our net skills a lot.”
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