Fallbrook High netters follow loss in opener with three straight wins

Although the Fallbrook High School girls tennis team began the 2018 season with a 12-6 loss Aug. 28 at Rancho Buena Vista, the Warriors won their next three matches.

Fallbrook's first victory of the year, as well as the Warriors' first home match of the season, was an 11-7 triumph against Orange Glen Aug. 30. The Warriors followed up that victory with wins Sept. 4 at El Camino and Sept. 6 against Oceanside at the Fallbrook Tennis Club.

"That's a pretty good start," said Fallbrook coach Bill Lenaway.

In the match against Orange Glen, Fallbrook prevailed despite Orange Glen senior Britney Chau winning all three of her singles sets at the Fallbrook Tennis Club. "She's real good," Lenaway said.

Orange Glen was in the Valley League in 2015 when Chau, then a freshman, faced Fallbrook junior Alyssa Karavitch in the Valley League singles final. Karavitch won the league championship by defeating Chau. Imogen Isaac was a Fallbrook freshman in 2015, when she played doubles in the league tournament and reached an all-Fallbrook semifinal in which Isaac and Megan Lowry lost to eventual league champions Maddie Young and Raquelle Rogers. Isaac won the 2016 Valley League singles championship, and in 2017 she lost in the final to Ramona's Julia Failla.

This year neither Isaac nor Failla, who is a sophomore, are playing CIF tennis so there is no favorite for this year's Valley League singles champion.

"I think it could be a really good tournament," Lenaway said. "I think I've got two girls who may be able to vie for it."

One of those Fallbrook players is Makena Larson, who is the only senior on this year's team and is Fallbrook's No. 1 singles player in the round-robin dual matches. The other is Alexa Guadarrama, who is a freshman and is the Warriors' No. 2 singles player. Fallbrook's No. 3 singles player, junior Nicole Dulin, played both singles and doubles in 2017.

Lenaway determines which of his top four doubles players will play together in any given match. "I don't really have a No. 1 team," he said.

Those top four doubles players are juniors Gabbi Bulli and Paulina Garcia, sophomore Lucy Bolduc, and freshman Bianka Garcia. Lenaway has been able to utilize 15 girls for the Fallbrook program, which gives six players junior varsity sets. Lenaway determines for each match who will be Fallbrook's varsity No. 3 doubles team and who will play junior varsity competition.

"I take a couple each match and I throw them in," he said of his No. 3 doubles teams.