Before Saturday, Westview High School had nothing gold from girls tennis in its trophy case. No teams had ever won a state title, and the Wildcats had never won a singles or doubles championship.
But that’s all over now.
On Saturday, Westview’s Amberly Au and Karolina Dobiecka took home the Class 6A girls doubles title in convincing fashion and led the Wildcats to the program’s first team title.
Westview finished the tournament with 25 team points. In second place was Jesuit with 16 and Clackamas was third with 10.
And while the team title feels nice, Dobiecka and Au agreed that the best feeling was to take the title for coach Tom Lefor, who has been coaching Westview girls tennis since 2007.
“It feels great,” said Dobiecka. “I think it means the most for our coach. He’s been coaching tennis for 15 years now at Westview. He’s a very hard working coach and he’s never had a program this strong. I think it just means the world to him to be able to finally take a state title.”
Outside of the girls doubles champions Westview got team points from girls doubles team Riho Iijima and Tessa Rozendal, who took third in the competition, and Neena Feldman, who took second in singles.
When asked what the strength of the Westview program was, Au said it was both the size of the program and each member’s ability to have success at the state tournament.
“The whole team basically.”
Team chemistry is also a major factor in the Wildcats’ success.
“We’ve been so positive and so connected as a family,” Dobiecka said. “We’re a big family. It’s just such a strong environment and everyone is so supportive.”
In the state finals, Au and Dobiecka found themselves facing familiar opponents: Jesuit’s Mishi Batinkova and Libby Day.
“We’ve played them before and we’ve beaten them before,” said Dobiecka. “So we knew we could beat them again. Honestly I think we were just so comfortable playing with one another that we just knew we had to be aggressive and take advantage when we could.”
While they were playing their Metro League rivals, Dobiecka said the biggest change to Saturday’s bout was the scenery. After a wet spring moved many tennis matches indoors, Dobiecka and Au found themselves playing the finals in the sun on Saturday.
“We played districts indoors and a lot of matches indoors,” Dobiecka said. “So playing outside was a little bit of a change for us.”
On the singles side, Clackamas sophomore Lauren Han also made school history in winning the Class 6A girls singles state championship. She’s the first Cavalier to do so.
Han beat Westview’s Neena Feldman in the championship match 6-3, 6-4.
Libby Blair of Sprague placed third, beating Jesuit’s Carissa Gerung 6-2, 6-2. Grant’s Marina Seidi won the consolation title, beating Allie Rist of Grants Pass in the finals 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.
— Nik Streng, [email protected], @NikStreng
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