KONOCTI HARBOR — Miriam Lane breezed to her first — but probably not her last — Coastal Mountain Conference girls” singles tennis title on Tuesday as the two-day conference championship tournament wrapped up at Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa.
Lane dominated Stella Day of Anderson Valley 6-1, 6-0 in the finals after breezing past Eli Holthaus of Mendocino 6-0, 6-2 in the semifinals earlier in the day. The Middletown freshman later received the CMC”s most valuable player award.
Another freshman, Moses Kuzu of Kelseyville, battled No. 1 seed Warren Lewis of Mendocino before falling 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 in the boys” singles finals.
“In tennis they use a term called a heavy ball and both of them hit heavy balls,” Kelseyville coach Jeff McLaren said of freshmen Lane and Kuzu. “It”s a ball with a lot of movement that really slams into an opponent”s racket.”
Since boys and girls compete against each other during the CMC regular season, Lane and Kuzu can look forward to some pretty good battles in No. 1 singles in the coming years, according to McLaren.
“Those are going to be some good matches to watch,” McLaren said.
Kuzu advanced to the finals opposite Lewis with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Clear Lake”s Nate Seacrest in the semifinals.
“He really did a good job against him (Lewis) in the finals,” McLaren said of Kuzu. “It went back and forth. I”m very proud of him.”
In boys” doubles, Kelseyville”s top-ranked team of Stuart Davy and Luke Kriken lost a grand total of one game in four sets on Tuesday while storming to the CMC title. They beat a Rincon Valley Christian tandem 6-1, 6-0 in the semifinals, and then shut out a team from Anderson Valley in the finals, 6-0, 6-0.
Davy and Kriken advance to the North Coast Section championships on May 9 at Rolling Hills Country Club in Novato.
Lake County”s best bet for a girls” doubles title came up short in the semifinals as the last surviving county team, Middletown”s Tasha Gibbs and Jeanine Zolczynski, fell 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 to a team from Rincon Valley Christian.
Two Rincon Valley Christian teams squared off in the girls” doubles finals.
The overall CMC team title — the conference is split up into three parts (North, Middle, South) during the regular season — went to Rincon Valley Christian with 17 points earned during the conference finals to 13 for Kelseyville and 11 for Mendocino.
Joining MVP Lane on the All-Conference team from Lake County were Clear Lake”s K.C. White, Tony Valdez and Hayden Gilbert, and Kelseyville”s Davy, Kriken, Kuzu, Andor Benyei and David Ferrario.
