Girls Tennis recently celebrated their big win for a section title against Granite Bay. Rocklin was the underdog, as they lost to Granite Bay 4-5 both times during league. Granite Bay ended league with a record of 8-4 which scored them 3rd place in league. Rocklin’s record was 7-5, with 4th place in league.

During playoffs, our girls tennis team won their first round against Whitney 7-2, and second round against Cosumnes Oaks 8-1 , scoring them their spot in the Section Championship game.

The game was originally planned for Thursday, November 9th, but was unfortunately rained out and rescheduled for the 13th. Many of the girls were nervous this would hurt their game.

“The day of the match, we were all super pumped and ready to play. When we got the text that the game was canceled we were all really bummed. We were nervous that sitting over the weekend would let our nerves build up,” said Emily Dezzani, junior.

That didn’t stop our girls tennis team from showing up ready and excited to play. They got started off and won their number 1 and 2 singles fairly easily. But with losses from 1 and 2 doubles, their nerves built up again. The score was 2-2; everyone was nervous.

Soon after the 3 and 6 singles lost their matches, but 3 doubles won, putting the score at 3-4. It came down to 5 and 6 singles who were still playing. In order for Rocklin to win, they had to win both matches; the pressure was on. Granite Bay only needed to win one of them.

Number 4,  junior Medha Dandamudi, had won her first set and was up 4-2 in the second. Our number 5, freshman Shree Reddy, had also won her first set but the second set was much closer. All the other Rocklin and Granite Bay players who had finished their matches were sitting around the courts watching and cheering on their teammates.

All of the sudden it started raining, making the courts too dangerous to play on. The USTA official stopped the match for a rain delay. All the girls had to come back the next day to finish the match. The pressure had gotten even worse for the two Rocklin players who had not finished yet.

“I was really nervous, I almost threw up the night before we had to finish the rest of the match,” said Shree.

The next day both teams came out ready to cheer and play. Medha finished off her match quickly, winning the second set 6-4, putting the overall score at 4-4. That left the weight of winning the section title on a freshman with not very much experience on a high school team. Her opponent on Granite Bay was a senior, and was much more composed and ready, with 4 years of experience under her belt.

“When it came down to just my match I was like, ‘okay Shree, you got this. Don’t double fault,’ because the whole team was basically counting on me to win the section so I kinda just hit the ball and got it in play”.

The score of her second set was 5-5. Her opponent won the next game, but Shree won the next making it 6-6. At 6 all, players play a seven point tie break to decide the winner of the set.

“I could barely stand as the points were being played,” Coach Eckenburg said. “The performance of these two girls, the whole team, was amazing.”

Shree won the tie break, set, and the entire match, winning the section title for the team.

“When we won it was amazing it was one of the happiest moments of my high school career. I know it’s only started but it was really amazing because everyone stormed the courts and our team really bonded,” said Shree.

It was truly an amazing day for the girls tennis team. They pulled off a huge win as the underdogs. Especially with rescheduling and the rain delay.

Congrats girls!