Girls' Tennis: Benicia Rolls to 9-0 Victory over American Canyon

Benicia 9, American Canyon 0

Records: Benicia 8-4. 

The Star: Panthers' No. 1-seeded Lindsey Smith defeated Gennina Bautista 6-0, 6-0 .

The Quote: "She's just extremely consistent. Hard to play, hard to beat. She's like playing the wall: the wall doesn't lose," Benicia coach Joe Perrin said of Smith.

 Who's Next? The Panthers will play at Hogan today at 3:30 p.m.

The Bottom Line: Benicia looks to carry the momentum of a strong win toward a big SCAC match-up at Vanden on Thursday.

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The Benicia High girls' tennis team didn't leave much on the table, as the entire squad rolled in a 9-0 home victory over American Canyon on Monday.

At the top for the Panthers, No. 1-seeded Lindsey Smith coasted to a 6-0, 6-0 defeat of the Wolves' Gennina Bautista.

Benicia coach Joe Perrin said Smith is impressive.

"She's just extremely consistent. Hard to play, hard to beat. She's like playing the wall: the wall doesn't lose," Perrin said.

Smith's low line-drive forehands hit the hard courts with lots of speed and often sent Bautista scrambling. Having broken each serve, Smith never was in danger of losing a game, as she never even had to face a deuce.

"If she gets everything back there, odds are the other girl is going to make the mistakes," Perrin said. "And that's pretty much what happens when you play Lindsey. She's just a consistent player."

Smith didn't give up any points in four of her games.

"It's different playing a team like this that only has freshman and sophomores," Smith said. "Even though their players are still pretty good, they're just making their way up."

She used Monday's match to help get tuned up for a visit to conference rival Vanden on Thursday.

"(Vanden is) very into the game, all their players practice a lot and come from families that play a lot of tennis," she said.

Perrin could see flashes of improvement on the first-year American Canyon varsity team. The school just opened this year. Perrin said he believes the Wolves could be a contender some day in the Solano County Athletic Conference.

"They're building their program right now. Unfortunately, they're not quite there yet, but they will be. There's a lot of progress on this team -- you can see it," he said.

In the end, though, they were never a dangerous threat to the Panthers, whose experience was too much for the Wolves' squad of freshman and sophomores.

Celine Eyler was the only other Benicia player to win all her games. She defeated Jessica Manalang at No. 4 singles 6-0, 6-0.

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Benicia 9, American Canyon 0

Singles – 1, Lindsey Smith (B) def. Gennina Bautista (6-0, 6-0), 2, Brittany Wood (B) def. Katherine Yu (6-1, 6-0), 3 Daisy Hayward (B) def. Cierra Allen (6-0, 6-1), 4, Celine Eyler (B) def. Jessica Manalang (6-0, 6-0), 5, Tara McAninch (B) def. Vivian Chow (6-1, 6-2). 6, Lindsey Klein (B) def. Allison Osorio (6-0, 6-1).

Doubles – 1, Monique Randall-Pearl Pongchareon (B) def. Ila Sahagun-Opinder Dhami (6-2, 6-0), 2, Hayley Murphy-Maya Guerant (B) def. Zuleyama Aguliar-Anne Mancio (6-1, 6-3), 3, Zoe Dean-Sierra Rybarczyk (B) def. Marissa Vazquez-Shannon Solaten (6-2, 6-1).