Girls Varsity Tennis vs Carpinteria

October 5, 2015

Cate’s girls varsity tennis team picked up a big victory over the Santa Ynez Pirates on Friday, October 2. The two teams played each other close all afternoon, but the Rams came away with a thrilling 10-8 win.

It almost didn’t turn out that way for Cate. Julia Gan ’16 was down 4-1 and then 5-2 against a very experienced and highly-ranked Pirates player.”I’ve been very pleased with the play of my entire team so far this season and today was no different. Playing back-to-back matches, they managed to come out swinging again, taking four of the first six sets and holding that lead with 3-3 rounds the rest of the way,” said Cate head coach Trevor Thrope.

“When I looked over at Julia at that point in the match, I saw that she had her “determined face” on and as she started to gain ground, I realized she was about to do something big,” Thorpe said of his senior captain.

Gan ’16 ended up taking that set in a 7-4 tie-breaker and didn’t lose another game the rest of the match. She is now 17-1 overall this season. In doubles, Summer Christensen ’17 and McKenna Madden ’16 pushed their unbeaten record to 12-0 (Summer is now 18-0 on the season). Madden ’16 has played singles for the majority of her four seasons at Cate, but Thrope has seen her talent grow throughout her time as a Ram.

“She’s such an impressive doubles player that we can’t help but put her there,” Thrope said.

Prior to this season, the Rams were 0-4 against Carpinteria High, 0-3 against Rio Mesa High, and 0-5 against Santa Ynez High. Cate currently sits at 6-0 (3-0 in league), having beaten all of those teams, plus last year’s Tri-Valley league champions, La Reina.Pairings Eva Herman ’17/Janice Ng .18 (9-3 together this season) and Emma Liberman ’16/Cecelia Sanborn ’16 (11-4 together this season) held their ground in doubles at the #2 and #3 positions, winning two matches each.

“In Santa Ynez and Rio Mesa, we’ve now beaten the #2 and #4 teams in CIF D3,” Thorpe said proudly.

The Rams will look to stay hot on Tuesday, October 6 when they hit the road and play Malibu. That match will start at 3pm.