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Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009
Oh, you again: Barcellos will face rival in tennis final
ATWATER -- Alexis Barcellos blew through her side of the bracket on Tuesday, clinching a berth in the championship match of the Central California Conference Singles Tournament.
Cause for celebration?
Hardly.
Merced Sun-Star - Los Banos freshman Alexis Barcellos reached Thursday's championship match in the Central California Conference Singles Tournament by winning all of her matches Tuesday in straight sets.
Merced Sun-Star - Los Banos freshman Alexis Barcellos will face a familiar foe: Turlock’s Elise Cusenza, shown here during the CCC singles Tennis Tournament on Tuesday. She won her first two sets 6-1, 6-1,.
Merced Sun-Star - Golden Valley's Rochelle Callister reaches for a return on Tuesday.
After punching her ticket into Thursday's final, the Los Banos freshman immediately turned her attention to her rival, Turlock's Elise Cusenza.
"Oh, I've already got them," she said of her butterflies, hours after her final match Tuesday at Buhach Colony High. "She played right next to me all afternoon, so it was kind of hard not to look."
The tournament's top seeds put on quite a show, winning all six of their matches in straight sets.
Top-ranked Cusenza, CCC runnerup in 2008 and undefeated in conference play this season, dropped only seven games in victories over Atwater's Kayla Spangler, Pitman's Britney Leon and Turlock's Allison Backlund.
Barcellos was just as efficient in wins over Pitman's Kristen Knudsen, Turlock's Aubree Brenda and Golden Valley's Rachelle Callister.
Her longest match -- against Brenda in the second round -- lasted a little more than an hour.
The final will be played alongside the CCC Doubles Tournament at 11 a.m. at Buhach Colony. Both Cusenza and Barcellos have qualified for the Sac-Joaquin Section individual tournament.
Barcellos already has a game plan in mind for their rematch: keep the ball low.
Cusenza is at her most dangerous, Barcellos said, when she can hit the ball on a high, shoulder-level bounce.
"I have to play my game and not hers," said Barcellos, whose only two losses came to her rival. "She likes to hit it right at her shoulders, and she'll smack it. I can't hit it high to her. I've done it every time we've played."
Callister put herself into contention by beating a pair of Merced players in the first two rounds
She dusted Priyanka Patel in the first round, 6-1, 6-1, and rallied past Stephanie Isenberg, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The magic ran dry in the semifinals. Callister mustered a challenge in the second set, but couldn't quite match Barcellos stroke for stroke.
"I think stamina came into it," Los Banos coach Lynn Barcellos said, also her mother. "Rachelle wasn't feeling good. She had a long match before."
There wasn't a third-fourth place match because the conference won't be sending three qualifiers to sections.
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