Warriors win league tennis championship

Fallbrook High School’s girls tennis team won the Valley League championship while finishing undefeated in league play.

“Just really excited,” said Fallbrook coach Dave Ramirez.

The Warriors concluded league play Oct. 23 at Ramona, where Fallbrook defeated the Bulldogs by a 15-3 score.

“We dominated. We beat them up really bad,” Ramirez said.

Ramona won the Valley League girls tennis championship in 2012 and shared the 2013 league title with Del Norte, which was moved to the Avocado East League in the North County realignment which brought Fallbrook from the Avocado West League to the Valley League. “We’re coming from a stronger league,” Ramirez said. “Coming in second in that league and coming into this league, we didn’t have any competition.”

Ramona’s match at the Fallbrook Tennis Club ended as a 16-2 victory for the Warriors. Ramona and Fallbrook had not been league opponents the 1962-63 seasons when CIF girls sports did not exist and the Palomar League was in the small-school 1A classification. The two matches against Fallbrook were the only league losses this year for the Bulldogs, whose 6-2 league record was complemented by a 10-4 overall regular-season statistic.

Fallbrook’s 8-0 league mark was incorporated into a 13-3 overall figure for the regular season. “We’ve had kind of a short season based on the size of our league,” Ramirez said.

Mission Vista, which is in the Valley League, does not have tennis, so the league has only five tennis programs. Fallbrook was also in a doubles “league” in which 10 teams participated in doubles matches; the Warriors finished fifth. “It was a good league,” Ramirez said.

The Avocado East League has six teams, and San Dieguito Academy posted a 10-0 record along with an 11-4 overall mark. That earned the Mustangs the seventh seed in the CIF Division I playoffs and a first-round home playoff match Oct. 28 against the 10th seed, which Fallbrook received.

The Mustangs advanced to the playoff quarterfinals with an 11-7 victory at Fallbrook’s expense. Although no Fallbrook singles player or doubles tandem won all three sets, singles players Alyssa Karavich and Raquelle Rogers each won two of their sets as did #1 doubles team Rebecca DuPont and Maddie Young. DuPont was one of only two seniors on the Warriors.

The CIF individual tournament at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego will start Monday, and the selection meeting tomorrow will determine which Fallbrook players will conclude their season in that tournament. “We’ve got a good opportunity to get all of my team in CIF,” Ramirez said. “We all want to get down to the Barnes Center.