Sedona Red Rock High School’s girls tennis team had already clinched a Division III, Section VI championship as it headed into the regular season finale against Anthem Prep on Tuesday, April 20. As such, the match against the Eagles became about securing the best possible postseason spot and finishing a perfect regular season. The Scorpions did both, winning 6-3.
As it’s been for much of the season, depth was the key for the Sedona team. While the No. 1 team of sophomores Rina Sato and Jillian Grondin lost their match, the other two Scorpions teams made up for it. The No. 2 team of senior Sofia Zimmerman and sophomore Natalie Arizmendi, won 8-4. The No. 3 team of senior Izzy Constante and sophomore Kaitlyn Otterlee was even more dominant, winning 8-0 and giving Sedona a 2-1 lead heading into singles.
The singles session told a similar story.
Anthem Prep’s No. 1 doubles team of sophomore Samantha Widener and freshman Isabelle Widener were also the top two singles players and won their matches, with Samantha beating Zimmerman and Isabelle defeating Sato. But as was the case in doubles, the complete Sedona team was too strong for the Eagles.
Grondin, the Scorpions No. 3 player, won her match 6-3, 6-4. Arizmendi lost the first set in her match 4-6, but came back to win the second set 7-5 and then the tiebreaker set 10-6 to secure her win. Constante won the No. 5 singles match 6-3, 6-0, while sophomore Joseline Arizmendi won the No. 6 singles match 6-2, 7-5.
Aside from finishing the regular season with a perfect record, one of the better signs for the Scorpions is that they held their position against the best two teams on the schedule, Anthem Prep and BASIS Flagstaff.
Coming into the season, Sedona knew that those would be the toughest two teams on the schedule. The Scorpions defeated the Eagles 5-4 in their first match of the season on April 1 and the Yeti 6-3 on April 5.
Three days later, SRRHS posted another 6-3 win over BASIS. Then, the Scorpions were even more dominant in the second match against Anthem Prep than they were in the first, winning 6-3. This was despite the Eagles having a slightly different order and some different doubles teams.
The Scorpions finished the season as the third seed in Division III. They will open the state playoffs at home on Tuesday, April 27 with a 3 p.m. match against Glendale Prep.
Should Sedona win, it would also host the quarterfinal match on Tuesday, May 4. That would be against the winner of No. 6 Benson and No. 11 Veritas Prep.
The semifinals would then be held on Friday, May 7 at the Paseo Racquet Center in Glendale, while the finals would be at the same venue on Saturday, May 8.
Anyone planning on attending a postseason game should know that at an Arizona Interscholastic Association Executive Board meeting on Monday, April 19, it was established that mask mandates will remain and be strictly enforced at state playoff games in all sports.
Sedona’s first round playoff opponent was not available at press time. It will be on redrocknews.com. The tournament brackets will also be available at AZpreps365.com.
