Under a canopy of striking sunlight and blue sky, Mount Rainier captured five out of the first six matches to stroke past Evergreen of White Center 5 - 4 in Seamount League coed high school tennis action Thursday in the warmth at the Marge Command Courts of Highline Community College.

In this format, the results of boys and girls matches plus a mixed doubles match determine the final team result.

For the first half of the season, the squads exchanged strokes in seven matches. As the players moved into the second half of the season, a second doubles match was added for both boys and girls.

Veteran coaches of each team viewed this year's changes with open minds.

"It's a pilot program," explained Ram head coach Tim Lee. "It makes for long matches, but I like having the mixed doubles back (as in several years back)."

"We're trying it," said Wolverine head coach Doris Burdin. "After the season's over, we'll look at it again."

First looks for Mount Rainier on Thursday showed Tung Nguyen outstroking Evergreen's Brian Thoma, 6-1, 6-1, in second boys singles. Ram teammate Trevor Thompson quickly joined Nguyen in the winner's circle with a 6-1, 6-0, first boys singles domination of Nghia Ngyuen.

Two three-set victories in girls singles provided the driving force for the final outcome.

In the first duel, Mount Rainier's Eva Ghirmai outlasted Tammy Do, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.

"I'm more of a defensive player," admitted the Ram senior. "For two years, I had an awkward swing that kept my opponents wondering where I would hit the ball. I'm better now, but sometimes I still hit some of those different type of swing shots and my opponents are surprised. I'm working hard to go to state."

Second singles was another feature in which the balance of power shifted.

Capitalizing on mistakes by Kelly Kivlahan, the Wolverines' Thearry Deap emerged with a 7-6 (7-3) first set victory. Kivlahan followed her coach's advice nearly to the letter by confidently rebounding to rhythmically return for 6-0 and 6-3 set wins to annex the match.

"I was either overhitting or hitting short in the first set," Kivlahan recalled. "I had to concentrate more on defense and my returns to be able to hit placements. Avoiding double faults was also important."

Second girls doubles went to the Mount Rainier tandem of Lorrin Rondeau and Carly Boyden, 6-1, 6-0, against Anna Quad and Monica Orallo.

"It was an exchange of ground strokes most of the time," explained Ram junior Rondeau. "We had to put the pressure on them with returns of serve."

Against the early Mount Rainier firepower, Evergreen seniors Keilah Fanene and Monica Serb overpowered Patty Vorasane and Katy Weythman 6-1, 6-2, to snatch a first girls doubles feature.

"We worked on isolating players for certain shots," said Fanene. "There were good rallies."

Serb added a few more details.

"Our big positives were holding serves well and communicating," she said.

Each girl is undefeated in doubles while playing with different partners and are trying to decide pairings for post-season play.

Wolverine strength continued to appear in the closing match victories.

Bryan Nguyen and Quoc - Bao Vo edged out Alan Tam and Nipun Sharma 7-5 in the first set of second boys doubles before gaining momentum for a match winning 6-0 second set win.

"We started slowly before we got our grounstrokes going," said Vu. "Winning the first set took some of the pressure off."

Also taking away some of the tenseness was Nguyen attacking more on serves.

Vi Nguyen and Daniel Nguyen stroked past the Rams' Matt Perry and Jessie Gracic 6-1, 6-0, in mixed doubles ahead of the Wolverines' Andy To and Jason Gronstrand's 6-2, 6-4, first boys doubles triumph against Brian Yoroza and Kevin Colbern to close out the Evergreen finishing kick.

"We lost to them last time because we lost one of the girls singles matches," concluded Lee. "After coming off a close loss to Highline, we got it done today. That was nice. The keys were that we needed to win both girls singles matches. Kelly Kivlahan gets a lot of credit for this."

Burdin agreed with the assessment.

"We don't have a lot of depth and needed to take a girls singles match."