Service High’s Allya Pedalino exacted a bit of family revenge in Saturday’s Region IV girls singles title match at Alaska Club East.
Pedalino topped West’s Antonia Yu 6-3, 6-0 to take the championship. Yu had defeated Allya’s twin sister Azra Pedalino in the semis.
“I had to win it for my sister’s sake,” Pedalino joked after the match.
In fact, she said keeping focus on the next point allowed her to cruise to the victory.
“We played in the regular season,” she said. “I wanted to come out with a this-point kind of mindset, like focusing on the next point, not on the previous one. Just like being in the moment.”
Pedalino, a junior and the tournament’s top seed, will be among the favorites in next week’s state tournament.
On the boys side, top seed Ulysses Escobar had a tougher time in his title match. The Service sophomore defeated South’s Aaron Griffin 6-4, 7-6 to take the boys title.
After Griffin played well in forcing a second-set tiebreaker, Escobar said that a mental refresh helped push him through.
“Leading up to the tiebreak I was feeling kind of exhausted,” he said. “I was starting to lose it. But, you know, whenever you have a chance to like transition to a clean slate, when a tiebreak starts or ever when a point finishes and a point starts, you always have to kind of rewire yourself. You just get into the mindset, I’m going to do this well.”
Other Region IV champions included Dimond’s Laney Fagerstrom and Meghan Spils, who defeated West’s Lillian Yang and Eva Lief 7-5, 4-6, 10-7 in girls doubles.
West’s Cyrus Clendaniel and Jude Cebrian took the boys doubles title 6-2, 6-0 over South’s Caleb Bailey and Andrew Ulman.
In mixed doubles, South’s Daniella Jameson and Ryder Skaaren won 7-6 over West’s Ava Smith and Will Sedwick.