Before Tuesday's wild card match with Norwalk, Lompoc boys tennis coach Loretta Jensen predicted “a close one.”

After the first round, Lompoc assumed a dominating 5-1 lead. Nevertheless, Jensen knew “there was a lot of tennis yet to be played.”

The lead shrunk to 7-5 after round two.

And then 9-8 in the final round, the crowd huddled around the night's final set.

So Jensen started to furiously crunch the numbers. What would happen in a 9-9 tie?

With that final set in a dead heat - a tiebreaker in progress to decide it all between Lompoc's No. 1 doubles team vs. Norwalk's No. 2 - Jensen realized something quite comforting.

No matter what, her team would win the match in total games, even if her doubles pair of Kyle Thumm and Marco Pasallo lost.

Advertisement

They won anyway.

And so did Lompoc tennis, 10-8, in a thrilling fight to the finish over Norwalk in a CIF Division IV Wild Card playoff game in Lompoc on Tuesday. Lompoc faces Whitney out of the Academy League on the road Thursday.

“That last point was a long time coming,” Jensen said. “They fought it out. But tonight it showed how important it is to get games.”

With the final doubles set yet to be decided, Lompoc held a 3-game lead over Norwalk. In the case of a 9-9 tie in CIF high school tennis matches, the tiebreaker goes to the team with the most total games. The most Norwalk could make up with a win via tiebreaker in the final set was one game, 7-6.

Thumm and Pasallo made that a moot point, overcoming deficits a number of times against Norwalk's Gabe Maniero and Ishmael Castro.

“With everyone watching, it was stressful,” Pasallo said. “We never usually close out.”

They did this time, when it counted. They were up 3-2, then down 4-5, then forced a tiebreaker at 6-6.

But all seemed lost when they went down 0-4 in the best-of-seven tiebreaker.

Both teams cheered on their athletes from just outside the fence.

“As a team, we rallied with them,” Jensen said.

Neither Thumm or Pasallo really understood the situation, but both knew it must be important with both sides applauding and agonizing their every move.

“There was a lot of pressure, it was intense,” Pasallo said. “But I really wanted a sweep.”

They scored the next five points to reassume the lead. And at 5-5, Pasallo served an important ace for the lead.

“I just clear my head, but usually a lot is on my mind,” Pasallo said of the important serve. “I focus, and am slow on the toss.”

A mishit from Norwalk gave Lompoc its 10th point - and made Jensen's furious number-crunching irrelevant.

The night started with much less drama.

Los Padres League individual title-holder Alex Jensen - fresh off his win over Santa Ynez's Juan Ferrer in the LPL Finals - swept his three sets at No. 1 singles, 6-3, 6-2, 6-0.

And at No. 2 singles, Lompoc's Robert Rodriguez shook off a disappointing loss to Norwalk's No. 1 Miguel Garcia, to beat No. 3 Henry Chong in the final round 6-0.

“I was leading the whole match, and then had a little mistake and he turned it around,” Rodriguez said of his 6-4 loss to Garcia.

Good thing he had a short memory, beating Chong for the ninth Lompoc point.

Anthony Yang played Rodriguez tough, falling 7-5. He split his previous two sets.

In doubles, Thumm and Pasallo swept 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2. Thumm and Pasallo have only played doubles together for three weeks.

Lompoc's No. 2 in doubles (Joel Martin and Cooper Barrick) took 1-of-3, including a thrilling comeback win 7-6 (7-5) over Maniero and Castro. Oscar Rodriguez and Carlos Diaz dropped their three sets to round out Lompoc's scores.

May 07, 2008