Green Valley girls sweat out Sunrise Region win

With a cold wind blowing, most of the participants bundled up in sweats Friday night to play the title-deciding tiebreaker in the Sunrise Region tournament at Darling Tennis Center.

But when Green Valley won the region title, outlasting Silverado 10-9 by winning four of the six tiebreaker matches, the Gators didn’t have a care in the world. They let loose with shrieks of joy and happily jumped around together.

“Amazing. My heart just pumped the whole time (in the tiebreaker),” said Daniel Efargan, who along with doubles partner Kayla Thomas overcame a 5-3 deficit in the tiebreaker to win, 8-6. “It’s my senior year and I (was telling myself) I have to take this and I have to go to Reno (for next week’s state tournament).

“This was the most amazing match and the most amazing experience I’ve ever had.”

The match between Southeast League rivals was tied 3-3 after one round, 6-6 after two and 9-9 after three, prompting the six first-round matches to be replayed to break the tie.

Narisa Montero and Gabby Friday went 2-1 in doubles for Green Valley and rolled to a 7-1 win in the tiebreaker.

Sydney Bogatz won 7-2 in singles in the tiebreaker and Daron Willer won her singles match 7-4 in the tiebreaker.

“It means so much because we worked so hard the whole season,” Miller said. “All the girls are such good teammates. Without one, our team wouldn’t be complete. We’re so excited. This was the most amazing win.”

Jessica Hsu was 2-1 in singles for Green Valley (10-3).

Kristen Santero went 3-0 in singles and Nicole Santero and Gianna Strong were 3-0 in doubles for the Skyhawks (11-2), who lost to the Gators for the second time this season.

Bishop Gorman 13, Palo Verde 5 — The doubles teams of Allie Beckett and Blair Bigelow and Ciera Cortney and Amanda Silvestri each went 3-0 to lead the three-time defending state champion Gaels (15-0) to their fourth straight Sunset Region title.

Anita Lee, Sarah Bessen and Michaele Sullivan each went 2-0 in singles for Bishop Gorman, which led 5-1 after one round and 9-3 after two.

The Panthers (13-1) suffered their only loss of the season.