Jefferson Finally Gets Revenge on McLean

It has been nine months since a coin flip helped to derail the Jefferson girls tennis team's 2010 season. On Monday, they exacted revenge on the beneficiary of that coin flip, the McLean Highlanders, with a 6-3 win.

The two teams finished last season in a three-way tie, along with Langley, for the Liberty District championship. A coin flip broke the tie, which McLean won, forcing Jefferson and Langley into a playoff for the right to move on to regionals. Langley won, and Jefferson had all offseason to think about the day Monday would come.

Jefferson’s No. 3 doubles team, juniors Madison Russell and Emily Ji, clinched the win by downing Nicole Bruner and Claire Ridgley, 10-1. After the win, their teammates let out TJ’s trademark, “yeah tennis!” cheer, which originated 10 years ago when a group of Jefferson tennis parents who had been scolded for cheering too vociferously tried to come up with a bland cheer that no one could find offensive. After last year’s coin flip debacle, the win and that emphatic yelp felt extra sweet for the Colonials.

“We definitely had some extra motivation going into today’s match after last year. We’ve been waiting for this match for a year, since we lost the coin flip,” Russell said. “I was shocked that they would use a coin, after we worked so hard all season. I thought we were cheated out of that, but new season, clean slate, and we’re off to a great start.”

During the offseason the league’s tiebreaker rules were revised, and this year the top three teams will advance to the regionals, rather than the top two. Nonetheless, McLean advanced to the state final last year, so no one could accuse them of being anything other than a worthy champion.

McLean had two of its top players graduate, and two other talented players have eschewed the high school team in favor of the USTA circuit. On Monday, McLean’s new top player was outstanding. Freshmen Megumi Chen, playing in her very first high school match, trounced Rena Liu -- another very promising freshmen with lethal groundstrokes -- 10-2. Chen also won a decisive victory in the doubles, teaming up with Nadia Arzberger to beat Rena Liu and Allie Meng, 10-4.

“I just tried to be consistent, and tried to force errors,” said Chen, who is the No. 4  ranked player in the Mid-Atlantic region in the 16-and-under category. “I was a little nervous, but my team supported me and I got through the match. When you play individual tournaments, everyone is your enemy, but here, you have your whole team behind you.”

Despite the fact that Chen was clearly the best player on either team, Jefferson had the depth through its lineup to prevail. Steffie Pitts dominated in the No. 3 singles spot, winning 10-2, Nathalie Cheng delivered a 10-1 rout in the No. 4 position, and Schyler Pa came through with a 10-5 win in the No. 6 hole.

In perhaps the most hard-fought match of the day, Jefferson’s No. 5 player, Stacey Zhou, outlasted Claire Ridgley 10-7 by varying her pace and using moon balls to wear her opponent down.  McLean’s only win that didn’t involve Chen was a very impressive 10-7 victory for Anna Pelak, McLean’s tenacious No. 2.

First-year coach Steven Myers, who played college tennis at Christopher Newport University, was very pleased to get a little revenge on McLean.

“It makes our announcement to the Liberty District that TJ is back in tennis and we’re here to stay hopefully,” he said. “But we have to play them again in less than a month, and we’ll need to improve if we hope to beat them again.”

The team’s next match is at home on Wednesday against Marshall, and, barring any random occurrences, they expect that they’ll either win or lose the match on the court, rather than at the hands of a coin.

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