South Whidbey sent its vast junior varsity girls tennis squad to Friday Harbor and came back with some hard lessons learned.

The Falcons, having previously walloped the Wolverines, elected to send its junior varsity team north April 15. South Whidbey had almost two weeks without a match, and both teams’ coaches chose to make it a JV bout. Friday Harbor won a modified lineup of seven doubles matches, 5-2.

“It was a great experience though, because most of our JV players had never played a full match, best of three sets,” said Falcon head coach Karyle Kramer. “So not only did they get more playing in, but they got to experience what a full match feels like.”

The loss was the team’s first this season. Some of the lessons learned about conditioning, spacing and teamwork, may stick better after a loss, Kramer said.

“It’s good to lose sometimes,” she said. “We often tend to think about our losses and what contributed to them longer than we think about our wins.”

South Whidbey’s top doubles team of Sophie Nilsen and Katrina Layton lost to Friday Harbor’s Ashton Timmons and Maddy Marinkovich, 6-1, 6-1.

Second doubles, Amanda Lee and Lindsay Oppelt, lost to Rox Borman and Meagan Anderson 6-2, 6-3.

In the third doubles match, Friday Harbor’s Kendall Calvert and Marina LeDuc won 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-0. They defeated Falcons Sophia Pisana and Macey Bishop.

Anna Zhou and Bailey Campbell lost the fourth doubles match to Sophia Dillery and Summer Fox, 6-3, 6-1.

Kendra Warwick and Kara Mead lost 6-1, 6-4 to Ashton Timmons and Maddy Marinkovic.

South Whidbey’s only victories were at sixth and seventh doubles. Lucy Clements and Anna Lynch defeated Sophia Dillery and Katrina Wakeman, 6-0, 6-3. And Iona Rohan and Clara Martin swept Summer Fox and Meagan Anderson, 6-0, 6-0.