Cate girls tennis earned the Santa Barbara Invitational title on Saturday in Santa Barbara, becoming the first local team to win the tournament in its five-year existence.
The Rams took down a pair of San Diego Section opponents in San Marcos and Rancho Bernardo before earning a win over Monta Vista of the Bay Area for the tournament title.
“This Cate girls’ tennis team outperformed expectations throughout the tournament,” Cate head coach Trevor Thorpe said. “Despite the convincing final scores, there were numerous closely contested matchups in each round.
“We really appreciate the willingness of these teams to come out and compete against us in our own backyard, because this type of challenge is what reveals our full potential. I think we learned this weekend that we are a championship-caliber team.”
Cate began its weekend on Friday with a 6-0 win over San Marcos of San Diego, including singles wins from Lisa Hasebe, Claire Tang and Jade Wang and doubles victories courtesy of Elly Edwards/Chelsea Newlove, Gwendi Rogers/Edie Abbott and Elizabeth Jayich/Ivy Huang.
The Rams kept rolling with a 5-1 win over Rancho Bernardo, with Jayich, Huang and Margo Nichols all winning in singles and the teams of Claire Tang/Kiki Chang and Edwards/Newlove both coming out on top in doubles action.
The Cate dominance continued into the championship matchup, where the Rams rolled to a 6-0 win over Monta Vista.
In the championship victory, Wang and Huang had singles victories and Edwards/Newlove, Tang/Nichols and Hasebe/Chang each came away with wins.
This article will be updated when other local schools’ results become available.
