It was only appropriate that Georgia Brown and Priscilla Grinner notched the clinching point for the Granada Hills girls’ tennis team during its annual City Section championship match against Palisades on Wednesday afternoon at Balboa Sports Center in Encino.
The Highlanders’ No. 1 duo and reigning two-time City individual doubles champions overcame a 4-3 deficit to beat Palisades’ No. 2 tandem of Sashi Gancheva and Penelope Mihal 6-4, completing a sweep of their three sets (each worth 1.5 points) in the round-robin format to spark Granada Hills’ 17 to 12.5 victory.
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The No. 2 team of Amy Nghiem and America Fragoso also swept and Sayuri Parandian won all four of her sets at No. 1 singles for Granada Hills (13-1), which captured its 14th section crown and second straight in the Open Division under coach Troy Aiken.
“During the changeover we just had to refocus, but we pick each other up when we need to,” said Grinner, who gutted through a painful labrum tear in her hip for the chance to finish her high school career on top. “I’m having surgery in December but you can bet I wasn’t gonna miss the team finals or individuals with Georgia.”
“Winning last year was great but this one means more because the majority of us are seniors and this was our last time playing for the team title,” Brown said.
Grinner and Brown are undefeated against City Section opponents in doubles over the last three seasons.
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Once the outcome was decided, both teams began subbing out their starters, but Parandian and Palisades sophomore Shaya Jovanovic, in the No. 2 spot, agreed to play anyway and treated everyone watching to a scintillating baseline display before the older player prevailed 8-6 in a tiebreaker. Jovanovic took her other three singles sets, and EJ Martin won two of three before being replaced for the last rotation.
“I’ve seen Shaya at tournaments, but I’d never played her before so we both wanted to do it,” said Parandian, who got injured in her third set and was subbed out for the fourth set in last fall’s 16 to 11.5 finals win over the Dolphins, who have won 29 section titles since 1973, including 21 under longtime coach Bud King.
The teams have met in the finals 13 times in the last 14 years and have combined to win the last 23 upper-division titles. Since the Open Division debuted in 2017, Palisades has won it five of eight times.
Top-seeded Granada Hills beat No. 4 Marshall 26.5 to 3 in the semifinals Monday while the second-seeded Dolphins (15-3) defeated No. 3 El Camino Real 27.5 to 2.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
