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Cate Picks Up Two More Wins, Early Favorite for Tri-Valley League Title

Cate Girls’ Tennis picked up two more convincing wins in this week’s matches against league opponents and move to 5-0 on the season.

On Tuesday, La Reina came to Cate Mesa with two strong singles players (Sophia Aulicino, Tiara Nourishad), who took 5-of-6 sets, but failed to pick up a solitary set in doubles play. Grace Fuss won twice in singles and Jackie Cai added another set to make a 12-6 victory for the Rams. Continue reading “Cate Picks Up Two More Wins, Early Favorite for Tri-Valley League Title”

Cate Defeats #2-Ranked Santa Ynez, then Dismantles Defending CIF D5 Champions

tennis-camp-2016-2 In the span of 48 hours Cate Girls’ Tennis has made great strides in the defense of our position as an elite Division 2 tennis team. Facing two long drives to away matches against tough opponents, we are now out the other side with two convincing wins and some powerful momentum. Continue reading “Cate Defeats #2-Ranked Santa Ynez, then Dismantles Defending CIF D5 Champions”

Traditions and Titles: The Beginning of Another Cate Girls’ Tennis Season

Yesterday afternoon, Cate Girls’ Tennis opened the 2016 season with a 13-5 win over Rio Mesa High School. It was the first win of the season and also the first step to defending our position as CIF Division 2’s top-ranked team!

It has always been a challenge to be in top form in the first match back from outings week, and this year was no different. What allowed us to take the victory is a tradition, a culture that we have established: Cate Tennis loves to compete. Our singles players are all willing and ready to grind out three hard-fought sets and our doubles teams rarely miss an opportunity to be aggressive at net. I could clearly see the difference between our practices this week and the way we performed in the match. Continue reading “Traditions and Titles: The Beginning of Another Cate Girls’ Tennis Season”

Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp 2016 Wrap-Up

Tennis Camp 2016 2-19 Today, we completed the third edition of the Laguna Blanca Tennis Camp in beautiful Santa Barbara and I’m proud to report a successful week. With 14 awesome campers, 5 celebrity players, 3 legendary coaches + yours truly, how could we go wrong?

In the team competition, Team Panda narrowly survived a late charge by Team Phix, giving Coach Tristan his team’s first win at Laguna Tennis Camp! Individual awards were handed out to Henry Signa (Most Improved), Alessa Somer (Coaches’ Award), and Grace Fuss/Luke Williams (Co-MVP’s).

Over the last five days we’ve prepared campers to make the jump from junior tennis to the high school format and learned some other important lessons, too: Continue reading “Laguna Blanca Summer Tennis Camp 2016 Wrap-Up”

Summer Tennis Camp 2016 off to Great Start!

Warmup Two days are done and dusted and I think we can all agree that today’s drop in temperature was a welcome respite (relatively, at least). Yesterday’s session featured an emphasis on the ins and outs of tie-breakers and the outsize role they can play in determining a match.

We also split into teams that will be competing for “Owl Points” throughout the remainder of camp. Coach Tristan’s team selected “Team Panda” while Coach Phillip Hick’s players used bits of his name to form the name “Team Phix.” The first Owl Point was awarded to Team Phix for most creative name, but Team Panda responded immediately with a win in the team serving competition by the narrowest of margins. Continue reading “Summer Tennis Camp 2016 off to Great Start!”

Ranked Laguna Tennis Team Misses Playoffs Selection on Technicality

It is with sadness that I have to report this news. Laguna Blanca Boys’ Tennis will not be in CIF Playoffs for a fourth consecutive season, despite showing superior performance over other teams that will be included.

As a freelance team, CIF requires 50% win-percentage to apply for an “at-large” bid and 80% win-percentage for automatic qualification into the playoffs. At 12-4, we came up one win short of 80%. Having had a great season, I still felt we had a good chance at being selected, but it was not to be. Continue reading “Ranked Laguna Tennis Team Misses Playoffs Selection on Technicality”

Laguna Tennis Finishes Regular Season 12-4

Laguna completed regular season play with a 15-3 win over Dunn that was initially quite a close match! In the first round, Dunn senior Abe Storey took an early 4-1 lead against Laguna’s Alex Furukawa and managed to hold on for a 6-4 victory. Meanwhile, on the next court over, Dunn’s best player (Julian Deck) picked up a tie-break win against Laguna senior Phillip Hicks and the #3 doubles position was also won by Dunn in a close set. Happily, that was to be the end of Dunn’s scoring for the day.

After going 3-3 overall in the first round, Laguna picked up the remaining 12 sets of play, spearheaded by a sweeps from Andrew Tolles in singles and Jack Stein/Kovid Mishra in doubles. Victor Liu/Conor Scheinberg also won two sets by large margins before Cameron Squire replaced Scheinberg to win a third-round set with Victor Liu.

The win puts Laguna Blanca Tennis at 12-4 overall, just short of the 80% win-margin required to automatically qualify for CIF Playoffs. Laguna hopes that consistently appearing on the D4 Top-Ten Seeding List will aid an at-large bid into the playoffs. Draws will be announced next Monday.

Laguna Empties Bench in 13-5 Win

Conor Scheinberg

Laguna Blanca moved to 8-1 on the season with a 13-5 victory at home against Orcutt Academy (5-3). The matched featured all 18 members of the Laguna team.

Singles was anchored by Alex Furukawa, who won his sets 6-1, 6-1 before being substituted out in the final round. Sophomores Conor Scheinberg (pictured above) and Victor Liu also came away with two wins each in singles.

In doubles, Phillip Hicks won two sets with different partners before being substituted out. Hicks partnered with fellow team captain Atty Roddick for a resounding 6-0 victory against the #1’s and then teamed up with Cameron Squire for a 6-4 win against the #3’s.

Freshman Andrew Tolles added 2-of-3 sets playing with different partners in each round.

The Owls are on spring break for several weeks, returning to play on April 12th against Carpinteria High at home.

Laguna Blanca Finally Defeat Pirates in 10-8 Win

Phillip Hicks Three seasons ago, Laguna Blanca boys’ tennis made the CIF playoffs for the first time in a decade. That team would go on to win a tight first-round match and hold a 4-2 lead over regional rival Santa Ynez High in the Round of 16. When all was said and done, Santa Ynez came back from that deficit with a 10-8 victory. It was a heartbreaker.

The next year, Santa Ynez beat us 11-7 in regular season play and then went on to win the CIF Division 4 Championships. In that match, Tristan Prinz and Ben Furukawa swept their singles sets and Phillip Hicks added another win at the #3 spot, but doubles got blanked 0-9. It was a heartbreaker.

Last season, Santa Ynez came to play at Laguna but after a few minutes of rain, decided unilaterally to cancel the match. Laguna Blanca seemed primed to finally take the win and the courts were dry shortly after the scheduled start time. The match never got rescheduled. It was a heartbreaker.

This season, there was no heartbreak. Phillip Hicks and Alex Furukawa (Ben Furukawa’s younger brother) continued the trend of two years prior by sweeping at the #1 and #2 singles spots. Today, though, there was also enough firepower in doubles to overcome the Pirates. Continue reading “Laguna Blanca Finally Defeat Pirates in 10-8 Win”

Laguna Tennis Now 5-1, Entering Heart of the Season

Laguna bounced back from yesterday’s loss with a resounding 13-5 win over Nordhoff High School at their courts in Ojai. The Rangers are currently ranked #10 in CIF D5 and are the defending Frontier League Champions. Continue reading “Laguna Tennis Now 5-1, Entering Heart of the Season”