By Ashley Khakshouri

Girls’ tennis ended this year with a record of 16-3, a great improvement from last year’s 12-7 record, which led them to the CIF playoffs.

The team only lost two regular season matches and defeated rival Chaminade twice 10-8, 12-6.

Other than those matches, the team won each league match by a significant amount. The team’s smallest margin of victory in those other matches was 10 games.

After winning the Mission League title, the team moved on to the League Individuals on Nov. 6 and CIF Playoffs on Nov. 13.

In CIF Individuals, two doubles teams and two singles players (Savannah de Montesquiou ’13 and Kristina Park ’13) competed.

One doubles team consisted of captains Nicole Hung ’10 and Izzy Heller ’10, and Kei Goldberg ’12 and Taylor Coon ’12 made up the other team.

On Nov. 9, Hung and Heller beat Goldberg and Coon in the finals 6-0, 6-3. De Montesquiou also lost against a player from Chaminade.

In the first round of CIF Playoffs, the team beat Westlake 14-4. The team traveled to Orange County for a weekend match against Woodbridge where they triumphed over them in the second Round Playoffs 13-5.

“It is difficult for a team to travel far and pull off a win against a good team like that, so everyone was pleased with the win,” Coon said.

The team was defeated in the quarterfinals by Campbell Hall when it suffered a loss of 14-4. Campbell Hall later went on to win the CIF Championship.

The team was very proud of how far it came in CIF, Hung said.

“I think we did exceptionally well in CIF… making it to the quarters was one of our main goals for the season,” she said.

“We had really good team chemistry and everyone stepped up at the end of the season which enabled us to get that far.”

A lot of the team’s success has been due to the intense training five times a week since August, Coon said.

The team has a structured workout made by the coaches that consists of a pre-warm up and warm up that help the players prepare for the matches. The training focuses on net game, especially for doubles.

“Our practices were very productive, and prepared us well for tough matches, such as our victories over Chaminade,” Coon said. “If the team hadn’t worked hard during practices and matches, I don’t think the team could have reached the quarterfinals.”

For Izzy Heller ’10, it was a bittersweet ending to the season and her varsity career.

“Obviously we wish we could’ve gotten further in CIF…and I feel we could’ve done better in individuals,” Heller said. “But we trained hard as a team and this was the first time in my varsity career we won Mission League outright, so I’m proud of our accomplishments.”