Today, Cate played Rio Mesa High School up on the Cate Mesa and came away with an 11-7 win. Rio Mesa is currently ranked #3 in Div. 3 of CIF and we haven’t beaten them in many years, so it was a good day for us. They came in with a 4-1 record and two nationally ranked singles players, including freshman Jupneet Singh who is ranked  #251 in the country in her class on tennisrecruiting.net.

In the first round, Julia Gan of Cate knocked off Rio #1 Dominique Derse who is currently ranked #80 in California and #556 in the nation. These two were no strangers, as they had featured in the finals of the Oxnard Winter Junior Tournament earlier this year (recap here), with Gan taking the win in a close three-setter.

The rest of the team rallied around Gan’s dominant 6-1 win at #1 singles to take 5 of the first 6 sets. Particularly crucial were the wins of Madeleine Nelson at #3 singles and Sarah Polowczak/Janice Ng at #3 doubles.

The second and third rounds were each split 3-3 in sets, with Cate’s #1 and #2 doubles teams towing the line with four of those set-wins. In fact, we didn’t drop a set all day at those positions. Pairings Summer Christensen/Eva Herman and Emma Liberman/Cecelia Sanborn were dominant at the net and held their nerve in key moments.

Rio Mesa was buoyed by three wins from their freshman phenom and two wins from Derse, but only managed two wins in doubles. In the end, the more complete team won the match.

Cate now moves to 2-0 while Rio Mesa drops to 4-2. We will next take the courts in an away match against Nordhoff High on Tuesday, September 22nd at 3pm.