CLAREMONT — Northwood’s No. 3 doubles tandem of Kelly Zang and Zoe Guo came away with a somewhat surprising sweep in their three sets, providing a huge boost to the Timberwolves in a 12-6 victory over No. 1 seed Sage Hill to win the CIF-SS Division 3 girls tennis championship Friday at The Claremont Club.

The victory gave the No. 2 seed Timberwolves the school’s first division title.

Zang and Guo won a marathon tiebreaker 14-12 tiebreaker in their first set against Sage Hill’s Ava Herin and Kana Byrd before going on to defeat their next two opponents.

“From that first win, they just shot off and swept the whole doubles lineup,” Northwood second-year coach Kayla Almazan. “They needed that first win and they persevered.”

Northwood’s doubles tandem of Kelly Au and Yu Chen won two sets after losing a first-set tiebreaker to Herin and Byrd.

Competing against Sage Hill and other ranked teams in the competitive Pacific Coast League prepared the Timberwolves for their Division 3 run, Almazan said.

The Timberwolves and Lightening split their two matches during league play, and fixing mistakes from the defeat was a factor in the championship match, Almazan said.

“We were pretty evenly matched,” Almazan said. “Today it was putting in the best effort. Sage came out and they played well. They knew what was on the line, as did we. Today it was about putting in the best effort.”

In other CIF-SS girls tennis finals Friday:

DIVISION 4

Keppel 12, Pacifica Christian 6: Keppel coach Michael Ten said a concerted effort went into boosting the play of his doubles teams this season.

The hard work paid off with the No. 1 seed Aztecs winning seven of nine doubles sets in the final en route to a victory over Pacific Christian.

Keppel’s tandems of Valerie Dinh and Yoyo Siu and Suriyah Pierribia and Valerie Ding swept all three of their sets.

“We spent all year working on our back end (doubles) and today our doubles really came through,” Ten said. “The doubles made the big difference.”

Aztecs singles players Vivian Dang and Dana Kunza each won two sets before being replaced by substitutes.

The Tritons entered the playoffs as the No. 9 team in Division 4 and went on to defeat No. 7 Upland in the second round and  Providence in the quarterfinals.

DIVISION 5

Segerstrom 11, California 7: Heading into the playoffs, Segerstrom coach Bruce Sanborn took Kyle Wong and Lyn Hang, his second and third best players, respectively, and made them into a doubles team.

Players and coaches on the Segerstrom girls tennis team celebrate after receiving the plaque for winning the CIF-SS Division 5 title on Friday, Nov. 11. (Photo by Lou Ponsi, Contributor)

That made a huge difference, said Sanborn, whose No. 3 seed Jaguars defeated No. 1 seed California to capture the Division 5 championship.

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“That solidified our doubles teams and gave us better matchups against these teams in the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals,” Sanborn said, “and that lineup change made us a stronger team top to bottom.”

California’s doubles team of Iliana Miranda and Alyssa Lopez won two of three their sets.