San Juan Capistrano, CA — The Lions opened up the season with a "tougher-than-it-looks" victory over the Oilers in Surf City a couple of weeks ago. Followed by two matches they schedule yearly (think Notre Dame vs Northern Illinois! jk)....Dana Hills and El Toro, to pad our "W" column. A handful of schools that would usually play us, have declined due to the new qualifying rules for CIF playoffs, Rosary drops out of our league so there goes two easy W's. Hanging on to 3 early wins is probably going to get slippery, but the girls are getting stronger every day. Los Osos is a VERY formidable program, having reached the CIF championships the past 2 years, winning it in 2022. Their boys' team is who we beat in the semis of CIF last year before taking the championship 2 days later. Not knowing much about the Grizz' lineup (they lost 4 starters from last year) JSerra stacked their doubles picking up 5 but needed a few more. Brookelyn and Scarlett swept all three sets played, opening up with a tiebreaker win at line 1 with both squads watching. This was an awesome doubles set, very strategic, especially considering it was the first time Brookelyn and Scarlett had played together. This gave us a 3-3 split at the end of round 1. KOach thought each round would go 3-3, needing a game count at 9-9 in the end, but the Lions flinched first in round 2. A very bright spot was Isabella Geffre, competing for her first time after ACL procedure 10 months ago. She won her first ever varsity singles match at JSerra, 6-1 on her first try and duplicated that vs the line 2 player in the next round, before a hard-fought loss at line 1. We've entered a gauntlet of matches that makes KOach think we are in the SEC of Orange County; San Juan Hills and Laguna Beach next week.... Hopefully, the 3 day weekend will help! Thank you, parents, friends and fans,! GO LIONS!