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Published on 05/18/1998 All articles from this issue

De Anza claims state crown in tennis

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By Billie Lee

Special to the Town Crier

For the first time in school history, the De Anza College women's tennis team has won the California Community College Team Championships.

The Lady Dons beat Cuesta Community College 5-4 to capture the state crown May 7 at Claremont College. Foothill College student Hui Ming Kwan was among the key players on the De Anza team, which serves both local colleges.

De Anza is the first Northern California school to win the title in 20 years, according to third-year coach Coleen Lee Wheat.

"It was a great honor to be the first coach to bring the trophy home for the North," she said.

The Lady Dons, who posted an 11-0 Coast Conference record, defeated teams from Butte and Fresno in the NorCal playoffs to advance to state.

This set up a meeting with Southern California champ Cuesta of San Luis Obispo. The teams faced off in six singles and three doubles matches.

De Anza and Cuesta split their singles matches, with No. 1 Tam Nguyen, No. 3 Chisato Kaizuka and No. 6 Lisa Johnson earning wins for the Lady Dons.

That left the doubles teams to break the tie. De Anza took two of the three matches, getting straight-set wins by the No. 1 team of Losaline Mafileo and Maka Clark, along with the No. 3 tandem of Kwan and Johnson.

Wheat seemed delighted by the way her team performed.

"They are fun loving, hard working student athletes who have represented the Foothill-De Anza Community College District with pride," the coach said.

The De Anza team had only one player born in California - 40-year-old Lisa Johnson.

Clark, a Los Altos resident, was born in Hawaii. Kaizuka is a native of Japan who attended Monta Vista High. Kwan is from Malaysia and is attending Foothill as an international student. Mafileo is from Tonga and came to the United States as a teen-ager. Nguyen was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the states as a young girl.