Morgan Hill – With a developing core of young talent the Live
Oak girls tennis team expects to make a 180-degree turnaround from
a dismal 1-15 2006 season.
Morgan Hill – With a developing core of young talent the Live Oak girls tennis team expects to make a 180-degree turnaround from a dismal 1-15 2006 season.
Jennifer Yoder enters her second year as head coach at Live Oak, after three years coaching the Lady Mustangs at Gilroy High School, and draws on her year-round tennis training program to get her players into game shape.
“We’re running miles, jump-roping, speed-roping, doing a lot of plyometric exercises, and using a medicine ball,” Yoder said.
Yoder implements use of a three-pound medicine ball to help develop her players’ ground stroke and put a little bit more power into their shots, she said.
This year’s tennis team welcomes back last season’s MVP Kalea Cleeton, and captain Karissa Watanabe.
Cleeton, 15, has played tennis since her freshman year at Live Oak, and has made strides since taking her first swings.
As a sophomore in 2006, Cleeton was the No. 4 singles player on the team, but has since moved up to the No. 2 singles spot, and will be challenging co-captain Watanabe for the No. 1 spot all season.
“It’s going to be a constant battle between those two,” Yoder said while Cleeton and Watanabe scrimmaged against each other on Wednesday.
During the summer Cleeton said she was mostly vacationing and hanging out with friends, but found some time to improve aspects of her game.
“When I came back I really worked on my serve and techniques … just tweaking some stuff,” she said. “I worked on my serve the most and that’s by far what I’ve improved.”
Cleeton also said she worked on positioning on the court.
“To hit away and down the line, I’ve learned a lot about that,” Cleeton said.
As co-captain, Cleeton is most looking forward to leading a young core to winning matches this season.
“We’re young, but that’s good because we have a lot to build upon,” Cleeton said. “And everyone’s really smart … we’re all at least 4.0 students. We’re calm … we’re not a crazy team, and since we don’t have that many people we know what we have to get done.”
With only nine players including two freshman, three sophomores, three juniors and one senior, Yoder is still looking to fill at least one spot on the roster.
“With the two schools it’s nice that we can field two tennis teams in Morgan Hill,” Yoder said. “The fact that (Sobrato and Live Oak) only have nine players each is kind of a little thing, but the students here at Live Oak will pick up the pieces and find that one extra player … someone always comes out of the wood work, so hopefully we’ll find one.”
In regards to her team’s match with Yerba Buena on Tuesday, Yoder said her team did very well considering it was the season opener.
“Our girls had a bit more endurance, a little bit more court awareness, they were able to use and utilize the court a lot better than Yerba Buena,” she said. “One, two and three won their matches because they utilized the court … They used all the shots that they had and they came out of their third sets smiling like roses.”
Yoder was particularly impressed because the three singles matches could have went to either team, she said.
“I think it came down to the girls just really wanting to win after last year’s suffering and losing so many times,” Yoder said. “Just having the will to win and fight, and have a little bit of passion for the game out there yesterday made the difference for them … especially for Karissa because she overcame a lot out there just to want to win.”
Watanabe her sets 3-6, 6-3, and a 7-5 tiebreaker Tuesday to take her first match of the season.
“She was coming to the net a lot and executing the points and playing hard,” Yoder said. “She had some big serves out there.”
As a junior last season Watanabe won only two of 12 matches.
The lone senior on the team, Watanabe, 17, is happy her team is competing in the B (Santa Teresa) league, and hopes to win more matches than last year.
“I’m looking forward to having fun, and hopefully winning some matches,” Watanabe said. “Last season was really hard in the A league, and there were really good people … I played No. 3 last season, and it was hard because we played a lot of good people that are ranked in the USTA.”
Watanabe said she didn’t play as much tennis during the summer as she usually would because she was busy working as a lifeguard at the Morgan Hill Aquatics Center.
Yoder also commended Cleeton’s play in Tuesday’s season opener.
“Kalea had some wonderful serves too,” Yoder said. “She also had a lot of points up at the net, and Kalea basically wore her opponent down.”
Other players Yoder mentioned were sophomore transfer student Alyssa Gamboa and freshman Melrose Ecura.
A transfer from Presentation High School in San Jose, Yoder looks forward to Gamboa being the No. 3 singles player.”
“Also freshman Melrose Ecura from Martin Murphy Middle School … I’m looking forward to seeing her out here for the next four years,” Yoder said.
“I’m really impressed with the girls this year, and I feel like they’re going to do really well in this B league, because they’re competitive out there,” Yoder said. “We’ve got four girls who’ve never really played tennis before, so some are beginners, but my singles players are basically the team this year … they are the stronghold of it all.”
