Pirates blank Grossmont in tennis regional playoff opener
COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College women's tennis team opened this year's Southern California Regional team playoffs with a resounding boom on Tuesday, blanking Grossmont College, 5-0, on Tuesday at the OCC Tennis Complex.
The unbeaten Pirates (19-0), seeded No. 1 in this year's regional bracket, had little trouble against the eighth-seeded Griffins (15-3), who jumped out to a 3-0 lead in doubles and never looked back from there. In those wins, the teams of Miri Inoue and Nicole Knickerbocker (8-1), Shayee Sherif and Camryn Mason (8-1) and Shannon Stone and Jackie Kaiser (8-4) posted convincing wins for the Pirates.
From there, all it took was a 6-0, 6-1 win by Inoue and a 6-0, 6-0 win by Knickerbocker in singles play before the match was stopped.
In addition to Tuesday's win, the several Pirates received Orange Empire Conference accolades for their tremendous work throughout the season.
Inoue earned conference Co-MVP honors along with Fullerton College's Yu Seung Suh, while in doubles, Inoue and Knickerbocker earned Doubles MVP for the conference. Head coach Chris Ketcham was also named the OEC's Coach of the Year after guiding the Pirates to their fourth straight conference crown.
The Pirates will advance to the Regional semifinals on Tuesday and will host No. 5 Santa Barbara City College (17-3), beginning at 2 p.m. This will be the second meeting of the year between the Pirates and Vaqueros, with OCC winning 9-0 over SBCC back on March 8. On Tuesday, the Vaqueros upset No. 4 Fullerton, 5-4, to advance to next week's Regional semifinal.
