Category: Cate Girls’ Tennis

The Cate Doubles pairing of sisters Jackie and Carol Cai continues to push forward into uncharted territory in CIF Individuals.

After qualifying as one of four teams from our region last week, the Sisters Cai were one of eight teams competing today for four spots in the CIF Individuals Finals Tournament Round-of-16.

Cate’s opponent was a doubles team from Long Beach Poly who had two full seasons of experience playing together, but Jackie and Carol came out swinging. Carol Cai hit a number of down-the-line winners off returns in the early games and Jackie Cai served as though possessed. Despite strong resistance from the experienced Poly team, the first set went 6-1 to Cate.

The second set of play was characterized by holds of serve; twelve of them, to be exact. Though the Cai’s were always up, and had a few opportunities early in the set to break, the Poly team picked it up in the second half of the set and forced a tie-breaker.

Cate came out nervous in the breaker, dropping five of the first six points. Undaunted, the Cate duo regrouped and put on a show of doubles dominance, winning seven of the next eight points to capture the match in straight sets.

Jackie and Carol Cai will play again tomorrow morning at 10:30am at Seal Beach Tennis Center and, with a win, would play again later in the day in the quarterfinal round.

This is the first time in 9 seasons as a coach at Cate that any team or singles player has advanced this far in CIF Individuals play. It’s a rarity, particularly coming from a school with such a strong academic focus, but a sweet opportunity.

Jackie, a senior, seems determined not to let the season end and as luck would have it, she’s got the perfect partner in her sister Carol to keep the dream alive!

Cate girls’ tennis was unable to continue their CIF D2 playoff run today, losing a 7-11 decision against Riverside Poly. The match-up pitted a school of 280 against a school of 2,800 and the size-difference showed in depth.

We finally ran up against a team with no weak points. Throughout the year, we’ve always been able to shift our lineup around and use our versatility to overcome strong opponents, but this team was just too deep. They’re the three-time consecutive CIF D4 Runner-Up team, so they also have a wealth of experience.

In the first round of play, it was all Riverside Poly, who won each of the first six sets. Cate lost close matches at #1 and #2 singles and at #3 doubles, but across-the-board seemed a nervous to be playing this level of competition deep in the playoffs.

Round two went better for the Rams, who secured clutch wins from freshman Grace Fuss over senior Dani Baum (6-4) and junior Jackie Cai against junior Jalyn Kornblum 6-2. Kornblum is ranked nearly 200 places ahead of Cai in US national rankings, making this one of Cai’s biggest wins on the season.

Summer Christensen and Sarah Polowczak tried to regroup after suffering their first loss in team play in the first round, but after coming back from 3-5 down in the second set, suffered a tie-break defeat.

In the third round, down 2-10, Cate remained determined to make a match of the affair, and quickly picked up wins from Christensen/Polowczak against a Poly substitute team (6-2) and Eva Herman/Janice Ng defeated the Poly #3 team, playing some of their best tennis of the playoffs (6-1). For Christensen and Herman, this marked the final match (and win) of their high school careers in team play, though Christensen will go on to compete in CIF Individuals with Polowczak.

The last doubles match on-court was Cate’s #3 team of freshman Carol Cai and first-year varsity player Sydney Burton. The pair were the most consistent Cate team through the first two rounds of play and ended up playing their best match of the season against the Riverside Poly #1’s. While they eventually went down 5-7, Cai and Burton hinted at the continued potential of Cate tennis in the coming years.

In singles, Grace Fuss picked up a gritty 6-4 victory over senior Dyala Harb and Jackie Cai played her best tennis of the season in a 6-1 win over Dani Baum. That left just one match on-court, between senior Katherine Grossman (a first year varsity player) and Poly sub Lily Mitchell. Grossman completed the “Cate senior sweep” of the final round by winning a tie-break set.

Winning five out of the last six sets really helped us come out of this match with the right feeling. We played our hearts out every single match of the year, so it was nice to go down fighting in our last match of the season. Just like our other loss of the season, it didn’t really feel like a loss at all. I have nothing but pride for my girls and what they’ve accomplished this season and I have no doubt that they will use this experience to come back even stronger next year.

It was a small victory just to arrive at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens for today’s match against Desert Valley League Champions Xavier Prep. The Cate girls’ tennis team hit the road at 7:30am and nearly missed the 1pm start time!

Round 1

Despite the long journey, Cate was game to the task, taking three of the first five sets. The sixth set of the first round, pitting the number two doubles teams against each other came to a head when Cate battled through two set points against to claim the 10th game and knot the set at 5-5. The points in that game were long, often involving multiple volley exchanges at net, but senior Eva Herman and junior Janice Ng refused to be put down. The pair ended up taking the set 7-5 and giving Cate a 4-2 lead overall after the first round.

Round 2

In the second round, Jackie Cai and the now 29-0 doubles pairing of Summer Christensen/Sarah Polowczak picked up quick 6-0 victories to make the match 6-2, but that’s all Cate would get from the second round.

The two senior singles players from Xavier Prep (Tiani Jadulang and Bryana Quintana) were untouchable on the day. According to their coach, Jadulang had some D1 offers on the table and Quintana is certainly headed towards college tennis as well.

Round 3

With the match tied at 6-6 after two rounds, it was time to start thinking about counting games. At that stage, Xavier held a two-game lead should the match end tied 9-9.

Cate jumped out to an impressive start in the third round of play, with Herman/Ng collecting a 6-1 victory that was matched by Christensen/Polowczak moments later. First year varsity player Katherine Grossman, who usually plays #3 doubles, followed with an impressive 6-1 display against the Xavier Prep #3 singles player.

Those lopsided victories would prove critical, because Cate lost the last three sets on the day. Grace Fuss and Jackie Cai battled mightily against their older, more experienced opponents, but were only able to scrape three games total between them.

The final doubles match pitted the top Xavier Prep team against two first-year varsity players Carol Cai and Sydney Burton from Cate. Despite falling behind 0-4, the pair fight doggedly in each game and started to make some headway. A few minutes later, the score was 1-4, then a few minutes after, 3-4. The run ended there, but it was a crucial exercise in persistence.

Count and Recount

After several tense minutes of counting and recounting and confirming each individual score, Cate emerged from the desert dust with a 69-68 victory on games. For another account of the nail-biting moments, see a local reporter’s take on the match (Heart-breaker of a tie-breaker: Xavier Prep Nosed out of Playoffs).

I am so proud of my players, not only for the way they battled for every single game, but also for the way they acted in victory. Our captains Summer and Eva called everyone over as Xavier Prep made one last hopeful recount. They told the team that we should wait until the bus to let out the excitement out of respect to our opponents, who were clearly crestfallen to lose by one game. These girls are a class act and it’s a real pleasure to be their coach!

Cate plays next on Monday at home against Riverside Poly in the CIF D2 Quarterfinal match. Riverside Poly has been a CIF Playoffs Finalist each of the last three seasons. Come out and support the girls at 2pm as they try to go one step farther than last season in CIF D2!