The Malibu Times Sports
Following last season’s second-place league finish and a bid to the CIF playoffs, the Malibu High School girls tennis team has started practicing and preparing for the 2010 campaign.
The girls face a challenging season. They lost a number of starting seniors from last year’s team, including Savannah Mosser, the top singles player who went undefeated in league play last year. But head coach Bruce Young is optimistic.
“It’s very hard to lose a player like Savannah,” Young said. “But I expect many of the team’s younger girls to step up this year.”
One of these younger players is Britta Mosser, the youngest of the Mosser sisters who have been the cornerstones of many Malibu High girls tennis teams for the past several years. After coming in second place in the league Individuals tournament last year, Mosser returns this season with a big goal.
“I want to win league individuals this year,” Mosser said.
Mosser and fellow sophomore Annie Thacker will headline a young, but experienced, singles lineup that Young said should be able to compete with the players of defending champion La Reina High School and the Sharks’ main rivals, Oaks Christian.
The Sharks also have a talented incoming freshman class. Young said newcomers such as Lauren Louks, Rachel Purewal and Raven Odian will be able to immediately contribute to the team.
“I am very encouraged by the talent of the incoming freshman and sophomore classes,” he said.
Also, many of the girls returning from last year’s squad say they are reassured and hopeful because of the depth and skill of the new girls on the team.
“I think we will have a great team because there are a lot of talented incoming freshmen, so I’m excited to see how we do this year,” said Mosser. “I think we will do really well.”
Young is also confident in the more experienced players, such as seniors Rachael Kraft and Winslett Wilson, and their ability to lead by example and contribute to a focused and determined atmosphere during practices as well as matches. Kraft and Wilson, who last season made up the Sharks’ number one doubles team, will headline a doubles lineup that Young and assistant coach Gary Hughes said will be better and deeper than last year’s lineup.
While this year’s team features lots of changes from last year, both players and coaches remain confident that they will be able to not only duplicate last year’s success, but also go above and beyond what last year’s team was able to do.
“We lost a lot of seniors that contributed so much to the team so it will be weird not having them on the team,” Mosser said. “But I think we will have a stronger team this year because we have a lot of great players coming in and returning to the team.”
And as for the main objective for this year’s team, Coach Young has only one major thing in mind.
“I want to win league. Period,” he said.