DHS girls swarm DVC singles semis

“It was a very happy ride home,” Davis High girls tennis coach Sally Hosley said after the Delta Valley Conference singles tournament in Laguna Creek on Tuesday.

“Overall I was very proud of all the girls (Tuesday).”

The high spirits were because Hosley was riding with three of the four DVC semifinalists — Blue Devils Inés Guinard, Cat Paw U and Kailynn Yang.

The finals were a back-and-forth match between Guinard and Laguna Creek’s Tiffany Pham, the tournament’s No. 1 seed and defending champion. Eventually, Pham got revenge for a loss to Guinard early this month by winning the DVC title 6-3, 4-6, (10-4).

But other than that, it was all Davis as the second-seeded Guinard, No. 4 Paw U and unseeded Yang combined to win five matches and fill up three of the semifinal slots.

Yang, a freshman who plays No. 5 singles for the Devils, topped Elk Grove’s two best players — Christina Beningfield (6-1, 6-3) and No. 3 seed Ashley Stone (6-1, 6-1) before getting knocked out by Guniard in the semis.

“Kailynn played her personal best tennis so far this year,” Hosley said. “She is so consistent and she fights for every point. Some of her rallies (Tuesday) exceeded 32 times back and forth over the net.

“She was very deserving to do so well in the tournament.”

Pham was going for her fourth straight individual league championship, and facing Guinard for the third straight time in the finals of this event. And this time, the DHS junior nearly pulled off the upset.

“Inés played great the first two sets, she kept Tiffany guessing, kept her on the defense and competed very well,” Hosley said. “The tie-breaker could have gone either way, but Tiffany had a bit more juice left inside of her and pulled it out.”

Guinard didn’t lose a game in defeating Elk Grove’s Cassidy Schoop and Yang on her way to the finals.

Before running into Pham in the semifinals, Paw U also posted a convincing victory for the Blue Devils, downing Sidney Tran of Monterey Trail, 6-1, 6-1.

Next up for DHS is the DVC doubles tournament on Thursday. Hosley will take three teams — Anna Klavins/Caron Miller, Ceci Cajandig/Megan Williams and Jasmine Mould/Layla Hanson — to Laguna Creek for that event.