The Los Altos High School Varsity girls tennis team made history on Saturday night by capturing its first-ever Central Coast Section (CCS) team championship.
Winning the title fulfilled a goal made a year ago after a close loss to Menlo School in the 2023 CCS semifinals.
This season’s journey started in August with a win in the Tyler Nii Memorial Tennis Championship Cup, a tournament whose contestants were last year’s CCS semifinalists. That win catapulted the Eagles into a strong regular season, which included winning the highly competitive Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza division. The team entered the CCS championships as the #1 seed, but in a field with so many talented tennis teams, the Eagles knew that every match could be challenging.
The Eagles’ path to the CCS title required four match wins. Los Altos defeated Homestead 5-2 in the Round of 16, St. Ignatius 6-1 in the quarterfinals and Harker 5-2 in the semifinals. In the CCS final, Los Altos faced a familiar and very strong foe in Menlo, the #2 seed. The Eagles approached every point with extreme focus and played incredible tennis up and down the lineup. The result was a 5-2 Nov. 16 win over Menlo to come full circle and fulfill the goal that was set a year ago.
The Eagles’ top four players dominated the singles matches through the CCS tournament, with Bella Mariona, Cory Medeiros and Pallavi Mallampati going 4-0 and Emily Wu going 3-0. Having a deep lineup is critical in high school tennis. The team demonstrated its depth with key contributions and match wins from co-captain Carissa Lai, co-captain Tyra Bogan, Ayana Modi, Maddie Herby, Lucy Lai, Emmy Redden, Ava Randall and Sophia Stavrakos.
Reflecting on the historic achievement, Los Altos head coach Hung Nguyen said, “I am so proud of my team. They worked very hard and supported each other through the ups and downs that happen over the course of a long season. We faced some really tough competition and played amazing tennis to prevail. We demonstrated great spirit, sportsmanship and teamwork on and off the court.”
The Eagles advance to the CIF NorCal Team Championships, which take place Nov. 22 and 23 at Broadstone Sports Club in Folsom.
