Pirates stun Roadrunners in Dual Team Regional semifinals!

By Tony Altobelli, Orange Coast College

PALM DESERT -- The Orange Coast College women's tennis team is picking the right time to play its best tennis of the season. Led by a solid start in doubles and strong depth in singles, the Pirates upset top-seeded College of the Desert, 5-4, in the Southern California Dual playoff semifinals on Tuesday.

The win for the fourth-seeded Pirates (14-2) sets up an Orange Empire Conference showdown with second-seed Fullerton College (18-2) on Saturday at FC, beginning at 2 p.m. The Hornets advanced to Satuday's final with a 5-3 win over seventh-seeded Riverside on Tuesday.

The matchup started with doubles and the Pirates knocked the previously-undefeated Roadrunners (13-1) back on their heels by winning 2-of-3 matches. 

Haley Dickson and Nikki Thornburg edged out the Roadrunners' top pair of Leticia Dos Santos and Laura Arruda, 8-6. Mai Hashimoto and Nadine Baquiran gave Coast a 2-0 lead by topping Leticia Vierra and Barbara Haikel, 8-5.

Thornburg, the Pirates' captain, showed her leadership in singles with an impressive 6-4, 6-0 win over Arruda. Hashimoto followed up her doubles win with a hard-fought 7-5, 6-4 win over Karina Braz.

At No. 6 singles, Anh Pham went back and forth with COD's Violeta Mollovs and in the end, it was Pham who hung on for the 7-5, 7-5 win, sending the Pirates into the regional finals.

This will be the third matchup between the Pirates and Hornets, with Fullerton winning the first two matches -- 5-4 at OCC on on Feb. 27 and 7-2 at FC on April 3. In that 7-2 loss, Coast pushed the Hornets to the edge, but came up short on three different three-set scores.

http://www.occpirateathletics.com/sports/wten/2013-14/releases/20140416agy2v9