The Palo Alto High School varsity girls’ tennis team defeated rival Gunn High School 5-2 Tuesday on the Paly courts.
The Lady Vikes truly rallied to produce this crucial victory, and a win on Thursday could help them secure a tie for third place in league play and a seed in the Central Coast Section playoffs.
Head coach Andy Harader was pleased with each of his player’s combined efforts to add a win to the team’s record.
“On any given day, [Gunn] can rise to the occasion,” Harader said. “They haven’t had such a good season and it would have made their season a lot more palatable had they beat us.”
Though the Lady Vikes were behind early in the match, they emerged with wins from all three doubles teams. Maya Krasnow (’11) and Emily Efland (’11) won in two sets, with scores of 6-1 and 6-1. Amy Ke (’12) and Sabrina Yeung (’11) finished victorious with scores of 6-7, 6-2 and 6-1, after battling back from a rough first set. The third duo of Margot Gerould (’11) and Felicia Wang (’14) fought through their third set to emerge with a win.
“Gunn’s doubles are always tough,” Harader said. “What we have been working in the last couple of weeks [on doubles] which is being tougher in third sets, [and it] really has paid off. [We won] more third sets today than we lost, so that turned around a statistic.”
Singles players Sammy Solomon (’13) and Aashli Budhirhaa (’14) both won their matches, showing the talent of the underclassmen on the team. The toughest matchup, between the Lady Vikes’ Mira Khanna (’11) and Gunn’s Alana Booth (’11), ended with Khanna losing in the tiebreaking round. However, Paly’s overall win had been secured by the other victorious matches of the game.
“I started off a lot slower and it took me a while to warm up and I was making a ton of unforced errors,” Khanna said. “I’m really glad that they [the team] came and pulled through [because] there were a couple of close matches.”
Solomon echoes this opinion and was confident that Paly could once again prove themselves on the court.
“Our team has done really well against them [Gunn] in the past,” she said. “We had a good chance of beating them and I’m glad we pulled out a win. They’re our rivals so we always play tough against them.”
The Lady Vikes play Homestead at home this Thursday at 3:30 p.m. Winning this match guarantees Paly a spot in the CCS tournament.
