Preps spotlight: How Los Altos made history and won its first CCS girls tennis crown

LOS ALTOS: EAGLES MAKE HISTORY

The feeling of winning a CCS title still hasn’t worn off for the Los Altos girls tennis team. 

On Saturday, the Eagles won their first CCS team title in school history, beating perennial Bay Area powerhouse Menlo School 5-2 at the Bay Club Courtside in Los Gatos. It was the first time a school not named Menlo, Monta Vista, Harker or Los Gatos won the section title since 2010. 

“I’m so glad we got to play Menlo in the finals,” said assistant coach Steve Apfelberg. “It was a heavyweight matchup. It was the top two seeds playing each other and we know each other so well. … It was fun to watch because you had future college players across both teams and across several courts. It just means a lot. We have a lot of respect for that program and to win our first championship and getting over that hump of Menlo meant a lot.”

Los Altos has been thinking about this moment since last season. Menlo beat Los Altos in the 2023 CCS semifinals in a close 4-3 match. 

This year, Los Altos made it a goal to make it back to the CCS playoffs and hoped it would draw Menlo along the way. 

A stellar start to the season was highlighted by a win in the Tyler Nii Memorial Tennis Championship Cup. Los Altos dominated the regular season with a `7-6 record and made it to the section playoffs as the No. 1 seed. 

Los Altos defeated Homestead, St. Ignatius and Harker to get to the CCS title game where it got its rematch against Menlo. 

The Eagles did not disappoint. 

Los Altos swept the singles matches behind solid play from Bella Mariona, Emily Wu, Cory Medeiros and Pallavi Mallampati. Los Altos then took one of three doubles matches to win the CCS title 5-3.

“These are the memories you take with you,” Apfelberg said on what he told his team after the win. 

Los Altos’ season will continue as it secured a spot in the NorCal regionals. The regionals were supposed to take place in Folsom this weekend, but have since been postponed to a later date because of weather concerns in the Sacramento area, according to Apfelberg. 

Los Altos will play the winner of the Washington-San Francisco/Oakland Athletic League winner in the first round. 

FOOTHILL: SMALL SENIOR CLASS MAKES BIG IMPACT

After Foothill’s dominant 2023 season ended in heartbreak, there were doubts that the Falcons could replicate their success – especially since only four players would be returning for their senior season. 

But Foothill’s four-player senior class has since silenced the doubters. 

After beating Redwood in four sets on Tuesday, the Falcons are going to their first state title game since 2006. Led by seniors Kaycie Burdick, Sophia Burdick, Lulu Hoenninger and Ella Choudhry, Foothill overcame some early bumps in the road. 

“We had a lot of people at the start of the season say we weren’t going to win our league again or that we weren’t going to be as good,” Burdick said after Tuesday’s win. “For us to turn around and show them that we could be just as good is really important.”

Foothill coach Dusty Collins said a meeting with his senior leaders before the season set the tone for what he expected out of them as leaders. 

“I told them, ‘we’re going to go how you go,’” he said. “People are all going to rally behind them and play the way they play, so I wanted them to be those types of leaders for us and they did that.”

ALHAMBRA: WIDE RECEIVER SNAGS NATIONAL RECOGNITION 

Alhambra wide receiver Julissa Islas was named the Maxpreps/USA Football Girls High School Flag Football Player of the Week, the organizations announced on Wednesday. 

Islas was a standout for Alhambra, which made a Cinderella run to the NCS Girls Flag Football Tournament championship. Islas caught a miraculous 60-yard touchdown pass to force overtime in Alhambra’s 26-20 loss to Alameda in the section title game. 

Over the course of the tournament, Islas played in four games and caught 30 passes for 341 yards and six touchdowns. The senior totaled 158 receptions for 2,308 yards and 31 touchdowns, leading the Bulldogs to a 20-7 record. 

ST. FRANCIS: LANCERS RUN OUT OF MAGIC, STILL GRATEFUL FOR SPECIAL SEASON

A charmed season for St. Francis came up one game short of the Lancers’ ultimate goal.

The Lancers, after winning a CCS Open Division title over St. Ignatius, had one more crown jewel in mind: the NorCal Open championship. But that’s not the way the story ended.

Archbishop Mitty instead completed its redemption tour, sweeping St. Francis 3-0 on the Lancers’ home floor to seize the NorCal title and advance to the CIF Open Division state championship.

After the match, St. Francis coach Lake Merchen noted how in some ways, his team’s run had been unexpected. And though it didn’t end the way the Lancers wanted it to, St. Francis had plenty to celebrate and build upon next season.

“Really, it’s been about how we got here,” Merchen said. “Tonight was hopefully going to be a cherry on top of what was truly an incredible season, and unfortunately, it didn’t swing our way. A good amount of our kids were sick. This is the first time I’ve seen our setter in the last four days. She was not there for our (semifinal) game against SI as well.”

Adversity was a hallmark as St. Francis regrouped this season after the graduation of a special senior class. All things considered, the Lancers retooled very successfully.

“Eight months ago, Eric and I, my assistant coach, we sat down at Mountain Mike’s across the street, and we were like, ‘OK, we lost 10 seniors. How are we going to make this work?’ Looking at the film that we had in preseason, being like, ‘OK, man, we got a long way to go.’

“And I don’t think tonight was the best we could have played. But, man, we have had so many incredible showings, incredible matches that trace back to so long ago. And obviously, we fell a little short of our ultimate goal. But about 99% of it, we got done. (Back then), I would have said, ‘Wow. What an incredible season.’”

LEIGH, LELAND, VALLEY CHRISTIAN PUT ON FOR SOUTH BAY WATER POLO

The epicenter of excellence in Bay Area water polo generally resides in the East Bay, with a smattering of elite success in the Peninsula.

It’s rarer, though, to see South Bay teams succeed at the highest level. But a few southern teams are making their mark.

Leland, which won the NorCal Division II championship last season, made some noise in the CCS Open Division bracket before falling to Sacred Heart Prep, the No. 1 girls team in the nation according to MaxPreps, in the semifinals. And fellow San Jose school Leigh claimed the Division I title with a 9-8 win over Los Altos.

On the boys side, Valley Christian emerged victorious with a 13-11 win over Leland in Division II.

“We’re pretty much the only school in this area that kind of goes year-round,” said Leland girls coach Eric Rise. “You have Sacred Heart up there is really good, and Soquel is really good. And then you have all those East Bay teams. I always want to play those teams. We’re always trying to schedule games with them.”

For the Leland girls, who have two more years to build around sophomore superstar Chrissy Flynn, the goal is eventually to pry an Open title from SHP’s ironclad grasp, and maybe add another NorCal title into the mix as well.

“This is the youngest team I’ve ever had,” Rise said. “I have one senior and two juniors, and that’s it. So we’re really young, and we’ve had a bunch of one-goal games where we had the lead and we let it slip because of our youth. But it kind of looks like we’re finding our way, because we lost three, four seniors who started on our team last year. So we’re starting to figure things out, but we’re hoping we make a run at CCS. Our goal is to get to that championship game and see what happens.”