As of right now, Aliso is currently 4-1 in non-league games, only losing to the Santa Margarita Eagles, the score being 12-6. The Eagles have some of the best players in Orange County, and as a team, they have been 15-2 during preseason and are expected to do very well during League.
On Sep. 19, Aliso played their first league game against the San Juan Hills Stallions and fought hard to win the close game of 10-8. The first set ended with a score of 4-2 in favor of the Wolverines, and the second set closed in favor of the Stallions 2-3, making the game tied at this point. The final set of the game marked the Wolverine’s first league win with a score of 4-3. This means the final score of the Stallions at Wolverines game ended in favor of the Wolverines 10-8.
Coach Jeff Pinter says, “[San Juan Hills] is probably our biggest competition during league this year. They gave us the most trouble last year. They ended up coming in second place last year in league only because they lost to us twice.”
Aliso beating San Juan Hills means the other teams in the league, the San Clemente Tritons, the Dana Hills Dolphins, the Capo Valley Cougars, and the Tesoro Titans should not affect the Wolverines to the same degree of stress as the game against the Stallions did.
Last Thursday, the Wolverines took on the Beckman Patriots, going into the game the teams seemed to be evenly matched. As mentioned before Aliso is currently 4-1 in preseason and Beckman is currently 3-1.
In the first set, the Wolverines started off strong and won the set 5-2, by the second set the Patriots made an attempt to come back with the second set score being 3-4, but the Wolverines did not have the intent to give up the win so easily. In the final set, the Wolverines swung for the fences and made the score 3-1. Meaning the final score shows that the Wolverines won 11-7.
The Wolverines are now 2-0 in League, and have six more games until the girls will see if they conquered their goal of making it to CIF for the sixth year in a row. If they are able to get to CIF, they will be defending their title of Division I Girls Tennis Champions.
Their next game is at San Clemente High School where they will take on the Tritons. It looks promising that the Wolverines will be able to beat the Tritons based on preseason stats.
Last year, the Aliso Niguel girls tennis team made it to CIF and faced the undefeated, Los Osos. Ultimately, Aliso won, marking the first-ever CIF win for Aliso Tennis.
