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Published on 11/11/1996 All articles from this issue

Mtn. View nets first tennis title

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Prep roundup

Town Crier Staff Report

Mountain View High girls tennis coach Jerry Gosland is into winning league titles. And last week his Spartans and Palo Alto High netted a share of the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League El Camino Division championship with 11-1 records.

Aside from winning its first-ever league title, Mountain View (15-1 overall) also downed Paly 5-2 in Friday's playoff to advance to the Central Coast Section tournament. The Spartans opened first-round play yesterday against Castilleja.

Tops for the Spartans are singles players Stephanie Fong and Vicki Chen with 16-1 records and Wen-Ai Yu at 16-0.

Also on Friday, St. Francis beat Saratoga 6-1 in a SCVAL De Anza Division playoff for a CCS spot. Both teams finished as co-champions with 13-1 marks. The Lancers (17-1 overall) took on Santa Teresa yesterday.

In the SCVAL individual tournament, St. Francis' Kim Guy defeated Los Altos' Julia Sherbakov 6-0, 6-3 for the title, and St. Francis' doubles team of Meghan Moore-Michelle Steingart won 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6) over a pair from Los Gatos for the championship.

FIELD HOCKEY: Bolstered by two goals from Katie Johnson and one each by Julie Collinson and Lea Jaeger, Los Altos downed Leigh 2-0 and Live Oak 2-1 last week to up its record to 6-3 in the Blossom Valley Mount Hamilton Division, 11-4 overall.

In last Thursday's anticipated Blossom Valley West Valley Division showdown, Cupertino scored a second-half goal to defeat Homestead 1-0 and remain undefeated at 7-0-5. Earlier in the week, Homestead (8-1-3) blanked Gilroy 3-0; Julie Brummer tallied one of the goals for the Mustangs.

CROSS COUNTRY: Los Altos' Andrew Hill blazed to first place in 16 minutes, three seconds at the SCVAL El Camino Division boys meet last week on the 2.95-mile Crystal Springs course in Burlingame. Also for Los Altos, which qualified for CCS as a team, Jorge Salinas placed third in 16:30; for Mountain View, Rene Moini notched a 17:48 and will compete at CCS.

On the girls side, Los Altos and St. Francis both gained team CCS berths in the El Camino and De Anza division meets. Tops for Los Altos were Lauren Miller (20:20) and Kelly McGowan (20:38), while Carla Swiryn (20:23) led St. Francis; making it to CCS for Mountain View were Tonia Giraud (20:11) and Allie Pitts (22:12).

The section championships run from 9:30 a.m. to 3:25 p.m. Saturday at Crystal Springs.

GIRLS WATER POLO: With a 10-7 win over Monta Vista, St. Francis secured the No. 4 spot in the SCVAL with an 8-3 record heading into this week's league tournament. The top two teams receive an automatic CCS berth, but there are also several at-large bids on the line.

Leading scorers for St. Francis were Ashley Scheel with five and Michelle Balconi with four. And as the horn sounded to end the match, goalie Sarah Willhalm fired a length-of-the-pool shot to complete the Lancers' scoring.

Willhalm, who was back in the cage for only her second complete game after suffering a leg injury, played well and should be back at full strength for the league tourney.

And anchoring the St. Francis defense was Crystal Melin, whom Coach Steve Yamamoto describes as one of the best hole sets in the league. "We're a well-rounded team with six pretty good starters," he added. "Our fast break is strong, but our strength is really defense."