Longtime La Cañada High School varsity girls’ tennis coach Will Moravec finally had his wish granted this season, and it has certainly benefitted his program.
“The last couple of years, I’ve been hoping we’d be in Division 2,” Moravec said. “A lot of times, CIF puts us in Division 1 and that’s super tough for us. The timing was right, and we’re in Division 2 with two hotshot freshman girls who really gave us depth this year.”
The added depth and placement in Division 2 allowed the Spartans to make an impressive postseason run, reaching the CIF Southern Section Division 2 semifinals following a 10-8 victory over Claremont on Monday.
La Cañada traveled to Long Beach on Wednesday to take on Poly in a semifinal match. Should the Spartans come away with a victory, they would advance to the final match against the winner of the other semifinal match between Aliso Niguel of Aliso Viejo and Chino Hills Ayala.
The Spartans have not played a CIF-SS championship match in 40 years. They finished as runners-up against Corona del Mar in 1978 and won the Division 3A crown in 1977 by defeating San Marino.
“The margins are getting smaller,” Moravec said. “The matches are going to be a lot closer and it’s going to be tight. There were a ton of 9-9 and 10-8 matches in first few rounds. That shows that CIF is doing a good job of making parity. You have to be on the top of your game. There’s no time for a bad day. Hopefully our girls will be ready and play great. They played great on Monday.”
The Spartans opened the playoff tournament with a 14-4 victory over Los Angeles Brentwood and followed that with an upset win over No. 2-seeded Redlands, which finished the regular season unbeaten.
The Division 2 championship match will be played at the Claremont Club this Friday, Nov. 9, at 11 a.m.
