March 7, 2024
Another One Bites the Dust, WU Down CSULA
By Francisco Claudio
Injuries and illness continue to plague the Westcliff women's tennis program, but the team continues to win nonetheless.
On Tuesday, the Warriors hosted D2 CSULA at the OC Great Park tennis courts and cruised to a 6-1 victory.
Westcliff started well by winning the doubles point which set them up with a positive momentum moving forwards in singles.
Doubles No. 2 Hana Moss and Lois Tsui won their match 6-3, while Doubles No. 3 Kanon Sorakubo and Shayee Sherif won 6-1.
Even after winning the remaining three points to call it a victory, the Warriors played out the rest of the matches to get more playing time under their belt.
Singles No. 1 Elena Gunfaus won in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.
Singes No. 3 Kanon Sorakubo won 6-3, 6-2.
Singles No. 4 Alessia Radu won 6-3, 6-1.
Singles No. 5 Shayee Sherif won 6-4, 6-2.
Singles No. 6 Justina Haver won 6-2, 6-1.
We caught up with assistant coach Mike Longanecker after the match and talked about how quickly Sherif has been able to look comfortable out on the courts in official matches.
Sherif went through an extended recovery period after injuring her ACL last year.
"Shayee's level has come up a lot since August," Longanecker said. "Now she's covering the court normally and competing to her old level. It's nice to see our depth again.
"I'm happy for her to go from not even being able to move on the court to competing again."
With the countless adjustments to the lineup because of outside factors, we asked Longanecker how he came up with the game plan for the day.
"We're just going by level, that's what we're supposed to do," Longanecker said. "Everyone kind of fights for that top six spots with challenge matches. We are just going off of our 1-6 level."
The women will play another home match on Monday, March 11th, against Occidental College before they begin their Arizona trip.