OJAI VALLEY TENNIS : Valley Tandem Encounters Little Resistance, Wins Girls’ 18 Division

Alisha Portnoy of Northridge and Abigail Villena of Granada Hills teamed to win the girls’ 18 doubles championship of the Ojai Valley tennis tournament Saturday, beating Renee Capri and Christine Hall, 6-1, 6-1.

Portnoy, a student at Granada Hills High who lost in the City Section final last fall, says that she and Villena had anticipated a tougher fight.

“We didn’t expect it to be such a wipeout,” Portnoy said. “I think we just raised our game. They could have come back at any time if we had let down.”

In the boys’ 18 doubles, Brian Giffin and Peter Morawiecki, both of Camarillo, defeated Steve Lappin and Jamie Price of Irvine, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4 tiebreaker).

Cathi Teobaldi of Pierce College advanced to the women’s junior college singles semifinals by defeating Cyndi Hurzeler of Golden West, 6-2, 6-4.

Teobaldi will play Orange Coast’s Julie Slattery at 9 this morning.

Other Pierce players didn’t fare as well, though.

Sang Kim and Mason Harris lost to Saddleback’s Emil Atcha and Gavin Fenske, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3, in the men’s semifinals.

Still, Coach Paul Xanthos said the fact that the team of Sang and Harris--just formed last week--was in the semifinals was a victory.

“It’s really a surprise they’re there at all,” Xanthos said. “We made a pretty good move.”

On Friday, Xanthos instructed Kim and Harris to stand sideways, parallel to the net and braced to hit a forehand when returning the topspin serve of Fresno’s Brian Beach, which initially had frustrated them.

The strategy worked and Sang and Harris defeated Beach and Ruben Castrejon, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3.

“(The adjustment) completely demoralized the server,” Xanthos said. “He lost four straight points and we couldn’t break his serve before that. We broke the other guy’s serve the same way and the match was over like that.”

Jason and Sean McKenna of Newbury Park lost in the boys’ 16 doubles final to Suri Appa and Dave Mullarkey of El Toro, 6-2, 5-7, 6-0.

Molly White of Camarillo and Heidi Steiber of Bakersfield lost in the girls’ 16 doubles to Ditter Huber of La Jolla and Krista Kuechler of Rancho Santa Fe, 6-4, 6-1,

Ed Peregrino of Saddleback proved to be the spoiler for a few Valley-area singles players. Peregrino knocked off Glendale’s Vicent Pagkaliwangan, Kim, and Darin Pleasant of Moorpark.

Peregrino will face Santa Barbara’s Billy Miller--the only Western State Conference player to beat Pleasant in the regular season--in the semifinals today.