The Liberty girls tennis team entered the CIF Central Section Division I playoffs with the clear advantage. The Patriots earned the top seed in the bracket and had a first-round bye, getting the chance to wait for their eventual opponent to be determined.
On Thursday at the Liberty courts, the opposition was San Joaquin Memorial, the ninth seeded team and while the Patriots were able to secure a 7-2 victory, Liberty Coach Chris Campoy was certainly not feeling at ease.
“When you’re in the playoffs, they’re all good. You take nothing for granted,” he said. “Even though they were seeded ninth, their top two (singles) had unbelievable matches with Hayden (Gehring) and Kara (Campoy). Everybody played well. As you see, we can fight.”
Liberty (24-1) opened the match taking two of three doubles matches. Gehring and Campoy won 8-4 over SJ Memorial’s Catherin Holt and Ell Saroyan. Liberty’s No. 2 doubles, Jili Soriano and Emily Cove made quick work of their match with Kendall Fry and Nadia Purtell, 8-0, but SJM’s Annaliese Kielmeyer and Ava Anderson took the No. 3 doubles match 8-1 over Liberty’s Hailey Lopez and Carli Cox.
In singles, Liberty and SJM split a pair of matches that went to a 10-point third set tiebreaker and Gehring’s match with Holt at No. 1 singles was a 6-6 (7-2), 6-3 win for Liberty.
“It was definitely a tough match and I knew I needed to win that first set to get a comfortable lead, so when I won, I told myself, ‘OK, I’ve got this,’ and the second set was a little easier,” said Gehring, a senior.
The same could be said for junior Kara Campoy’s battle with SJM’s Kielmeyer at No. 2 singles. The score may not reflect it too much, 6-4, 6-1 for Campoy, but she was down 4-1 in the first set before finding her way to a victory.
“It was really tough,” said Campoy, the granddaughter of Liberty’s coach. “She had a game I’ve not played very often. She was very consistent and I had to switch some things up. I played different strategies because keeping the same thing was not going to work out. It was a patience match and I was trying to stay calm and play through it.”
SJM’s other point came at No. 3 singles when Fry defeated Liberty’s Soriano 6-2, 4-6 and 10-2 in the third set.
Liberty’s Cove won 6-1, 6-1 at No. 4 singles over Saroyan, No. 5 Emma Webdall won 2-6, 6-4 and 10-8 in the final set against Abby Powers, and No. 6 Madison Power won 6-3, 6-0 against Paisley Tymn.
The Patriots will now host the next round on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Coach Campoy indicated that the match with their next opponent, either No. 4 Arroyo Grande or No. 5 Clovis North, will be played at 1 p.m.
