APTOS — Aptos High’s girls tennis team won three of four singles matches but were swept in doubles action as the Mariners fell 4-3 to Santa Catalina in the first round of the Central Coast Section Team Tournament on a rainy Monday at Seascape Sport Club.
The Mariners, the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League champion, finished with an 8-3 overall record, after going 8-0 in league.
Santa Catalina (9-6), the third-place finisher in the Pacific Coast Athletic League Gabilan Division, will face No. 4 seed Evergreen Valley (11-7) in San Jose on Tuesday in the second round.
“It was a terrific season and I’m so proud of our team, not just as tennis players, but more importantly, as kind and supportive young people,” said Tamara Brown, the Mariners’ head coach.
The coach and her assistant, Sam Brown, squeegeed the courts in the morning, and shortly after they finished it started raining again. They repeated the process in the afternoon. The match was briefly delayed by afternoon sprinkle.
“Squeegeeing isa total body workout, especially when you do it for four hours in a day,” Tamara Brown said. “Sam’s phone said he got in over 11 miles of steps today!”
Ally Yoshiyama clinched the win for Catalina with her 6-3, 6-1 win over sophomore Coral Collins at No. 3 singles.
In other singles action, senior Holly Hegna beat Aspasia Elorduy-Kyriakis 6-3, 6-0 at No. 1, senior Tiana Smith beat Yunnah Baek 6-1, 6-0 at No. 2, and junior Aviana Andrews beat Pablos, Magdalena 7-5, 6-3 at No. 4.
Smith, the SCCAL singles champion, improved 13-1 on the season, and Andrews improved to 12-1.
The Cougars won all three doubles matches in straight sets. Gaby Salazar and Averie Nguyen beat sophomores Isabella and Natalia Calderon 6-2, 6-1 at No. 1, Maya Touché and Sofia Gutierrez beat juniors Finn Gansauer-Pilcher and Gamble Kellermyer 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2, and Ava Kruger and Chloe Thompson beat senior Natalie Victory and sophomore Neci Hoeptner 6-2, 6-1 at No. 3.
Three Mariners still have at least one more match this season.
Smith faces No. 4 Varsha Jawadi of Aragon in the first round of the CCS Singles Championship at Bay Club Courtside in Los Gatos on Nov. 13 at noon. The winner faces either Ruby Myrold of Carmel or Kylie Liao of Lynbrook in the quarterfinals.
Hegna and Collins, the SCCAL doubles champions, take on Carmel’s Gia Panetta and Alyssa Moore in the first round of the CCS Doubles Championship at Bay Club Courtside on Nov. 14 at noon. The winner faces either No. 1 Tess Ellingson and Eva Chow of Menlo-Atherton or Shloka Chawla and Sneha Thayaparan of Leland in the quarterfinals.