In leading up to the start of the 2016-17 athletics campaign at Irvine Valley, which starts Friday, Aug. 26 with women's soccer hosting a match, the Laser athletic department will count down the top 10 IVC sports stories from the 2015-16 school year.
It was Irvine Valley's sophomore duo of Emily Reinking and Hailee Earnest that played the toughest and earned the title at Grossmont College on a Sunday in early May.
Reinking and Earnest earned their second straight individual titles.
Reinking had teamed with Annie Mitchem to win the No. 2 pairs state title, while Earnest teamed with Samantha Holdredge to win the No. 3 pairs championship in 2015.
With the 2016 state event down to just one tournament bracket featuring all of the best pairs teams in the state, Reinking and Earnest, who were seeded third, won five matches over two days to take the title.
They beat Breanna Kirklen and Kyra Hendersen from MiraCosta, 21-16, 21-16, in a quarterfinal match on Saturday morning and then defeated the Cabrillo team of Morgan Ehritt and Erin Mitchell, 21-12, 21-16, in the semifinals. Ehritt and Mitchell were seeded second.
The championship match came down to Reinking and Earnest against MiraCosta's top team of Brianna Sizemore and Cady Francis. Sizemore and Francis were seeded fourth.
The IVC pair won, 21-15, 21-18. Reinking and Earnest used a 12-3 run in the middle of the second set to take control.
Reinking and Earnest had defeated the MiraCosta tandem in straight sets last Tuesday in a team regional.
Reinking and Earnest proved to be the dominant team over the weekend going 8-0 without dropping a set on its way to the championship. Reinking and Earnest helped Irvine Valley to a runner-up finish in the team competition.
The duo, which had won the Orange Empire Conference pairs title two weeks earlier, also swept all of their opponents in straight sets over the weekend in Grossmont.
Earnest and Reinking were named the Orange Empire Conference team of the year at the end of the campaign.
They won the conference pairs title, defeating Golden West's top team of Jasmine Hogan and Jill Pineda, 21-10, 21-10, in the final in Huntington Beach in late April.
To top off the year for Reinking, who also helped IVC win a conference title in indoor volleyball last fall, she earned a scholarship to Division 1 Grand Canyon University to play beach volleyball next spring.
