Tennis title time? KR wants a taste

After coming close again and again, 6-0 Chargers take control of SPSL North race

Anna McIntosh knows all about contending for a team tennis championship.

Now, in her senior season, she’d like to find out about winning one.

“We’ve been trying for three years. I’m tired of being second,” McIntosh said last Thursday after she and Kim Quach teamed up to help Kentridge take another step in the direction of the penthouse with a 3-2 victory against defending South Puget Sound League North Division champion Kentwood.

“It was nice to win,” McIntosh added. “And it was good to get it done before spring break.”

Indeed, the match had been scheduled for March 25, but, like so many others this season, was postponed by rain.

So instead spending their week off thinking about it, the Chargers – who were second in 2005 when McIntosh was a freshman, tied for second in 2006 and took third last year – can have some time to enjoy their 6-0 record that has them in command of the North.

Kentwood is second at 5-2, with Tahoma, a team which has surprised more than a few people, third at 4-2.

Each team is behind at least one match on the schedule because of rainouts.

McIntosh and Quach provided the deciding point against Kentwood, and made a big comeback to do it. Down 7-5, 3-0, they rallied to defeat Breanna Esber and Alyssa Nagai in the No. 1 doubles, match, 5-7, 7-5, 6-2.

“We needed to take our time. We were rushing the points so much,” said Quach, a junior who normally anchors the No. 1 singles spot. “We wanted to play our game.

Added McIntosh, “We were being too hard on ourselves (when we were behind). We just wanted to keep the momentum.”

The Charger duo had it early in the first set, building a 5-3 lead. That’s when Esber and Nagai put together a streak of seven straight game that took them from that 5-3 deficit to victory in the first set and a 3-0 lead in the second.

But McIntosh and Quach came back, first forging a 4-4 tie, then, with the match on the line, breaking Esber’s serve to make it 5-5.

That started a five-game KR winning streak, helping the Charger duo close out the second set and take a 2-0 lead in the third. Esber and Nagai responded, with Nagai coming from love-30 down on her serve to win that game and make it 2-2 in the third.

McIntosh and Quach then ran off the next four games, winning 16 of the final 19 points in the match.

Kentridge coach Jennifer McIntosh laid it out clear and simple for them after they fell behind 3-0 in the second set.

“I said, ‘You guys need to decide to win. You have to give yourselves a chance to win,’” said McIntosh, who also is Anna’s mother.

Kentridge easily won the Nos. 2 and 3 doubles matches. Reeti Diwan and Chelsey White beat Niki Skinner and Eliano Spero, 6-1, 6-3; while Jazmin AhYat and Kelsey Robson topped Korin Hedlund and Camille Madsen, 6-2, 6-1.

Kentwood, which went 13-1 last year (its only loss coming to Kentridge) swept the two singles matches, both of which were of the back-and-forth, grind-it-out variety. Kendall Bielinski got past Sunita Venkatesh, 7-5 6-4; and Laura Araka defeated Vicky Tran, 7-5, 5-7, 12-10 (The last set was a 10-point super-tiebreaker because the team outcome already had been decided.)

While Quach normally plays singles, and Anna McIntosh teams up with fellow senior White in doubles, Jennifer McIntosh said all concerned were amenable to making some changes.

“We agreed as a team that we would take care of the team first,” the KR coach said. “We were pretty sure that going heavy in doubles, we could do that.”

On an afternoon when she didn’t get the outcome that she wanted, Kentwood coach Ingrid Bakke did get the attitude from her players that she wanted at the end of what was a rough week for the Conquerors. Just a day earlier, Tahoma pulled out a 3-2 decision, handing Kentwood its first loss of the season.

“To come back from yesterday, they showed what an amazing team they are, to come in and try to fight back,” Bakke said. “We had our opportunities, and that’s what you want.”

ALSO: Kelly Lehigh won her fourth straight singles match, and Jessica Price helped make it a sweep of singles as Tahoma beat Kentwood last Wednesday, 3-2. Lehigh, who started the season 0-2, beat Laura Araki in the No. 1 match, 6-3, 6-2, and Price downed Eliano Spero, 7-5, 6-4. Tahoma’s other point was a three-set victory in No. 3 doubles, as Sierra Southworth and Maria Bahlenhorst defeated Niki Skinner and Camille Madsen, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2. … Heidi Weaver and Julie Williams swept singles, and Kentlake also won No. 1 doubles with Annie Cavanaugh and Lexi Bolton to edge Kent-Meridian last Wednesday, 3-2.