BEAVERTON – If you would have told South Eugene girls tennis co-head coaches Zach Glauber and Andrei Kleshchev that their team would end the year as state champions, they likely wouldn’t have believed you.
However, the Axe pulled it off Saturday at the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union 6A state girls tennis tournament at Tualatin Hills Tennis Center in Beaverton, winning the program’s first-ever girls tennis team title.
South Eugene finished with 12.5 points, edging out defending champion Westview in second with 12 points. South Medford and Sunset tied for third place with 11 points each.
“It wasn’t even on our radar,” Kleschchev said of winning the team title. “Going into this tournament, I thought maybe our girls could win doubles, but I wasn’t even considering that we could win it all as a team.”
“Everyone kind of showed up,” Glauber said. “We handled our business the best we could. It literally came down to every point we got. To win by half a point is unbelievable.”
Powering the effort was that doubles team in senior Rosalyn Cho and sophomore Ellie Park as the two won the doubles state title.
Seeded No. 6, Cho and Park had to upset the No. 3 seed in Westview’s Malavika Rahul and Vivienne Lu in the quarterfinals (7-5, 6-3), followed by the No. 2 seed in Sunset’s Ella MacPherson and Maya Cormack in the semifinals (6-2, 2-6, 7-5).
In the final, it was a familiar foe in Sheldon senior duo Hayden Kearney and Alyssa Piquette.
Cho and Park had lost to the Irish duo three times this season, but flipped the script in the state title match with a dominant 6-2, 6-3 victory.
“We started at the beginning year with no idea that we would get to this place,” Cho said. “I’m just so grateful to be playing with my best friend. We’ve had so much fun together and we’ve learned and we grew.”
“If you told me at the start of the season that we won, I would laugh,” Park said. “I never thought we could do it and now we’re here. It’s a great feeling, (Sheldon) played so good. We lost to them three times so beating them in the finals is really special.”
Cho wasn’t hard to miss as she let her emotions flow with every point with a yell and a strong high five with Park.
Those emotions allowed the duo to reset for every point and take the match piece by piece to finally get over the Sheldon hurdle.
“We would just keep telling ourselves, ‘Let’s start again at 0-0,’” Cho said of the emotions of the match. “We can’t get too ahead of ourselves. Coming into the match, I cried a little bit before because I was so stressed. (Park) kept me together and I kept her together, and I think that’s what makes it so precious to us.”
The two best friends played singles before coming together this season to form the strong doubles duo.
And even despite falling to Sheldon three times, the two knew they were capable of taking down the crosstown rivals if they stayed consistent.
“I think staying steady, staying strong and not reverting from gameplan really just helps to stay grounded,” Park said.
“It was the best (Cho and Park) played all season,” Glauber said. “For it to happen in the biggest match, there’s no words for it. Just unbelievable.”
Not only did the win secure the first team state title in program history, but the duo became the first doubles or singles players from South Eugene to win a state title.
Combine them with senior Sydney Chandler picking up two points in the singles bracket and fellow doubles duo in senior Lily Yao and sophomore Ameenah Alrahmani picking up a point in the consolation bracket, and the Axe had just enough to pull out the team title.
“Part of history, it’s special,” Glauber said. “First ever individuals too and to also get the team award, it’s special.”
The Axe got a big lift thanks to South Medford junior Alexis Uschold winning the individual state crown, taking down Westview senior Nikhitha Suresh in the final with the Wildcats only down half a point.
Uschold controlled the match from the beginning with a 6-3, 6-1 victory, becoming only the second Panther to ever win an individual state girls tennis title. The first was Cynthia Ross in 1992.
“It was such a battle, I’ve played Nikhitha so many times and I respect her so much as a player,” Uschold said. “I just wanted to stay calm under pressure. I had some extra support today, some friends came down from Corvallis and they really helped me push through and mentally gain the confidence I needed to pull it out.”
The state stage isn’t new for Uschold who made the semifinals as a freshman in 2024. However, she fell in the quarterfinals last year as a sophomore to West Linn’s Sonya Drayton.
Seeded No. 6 this year, Uschold was on the right side of the upsets, starting with a 6-3, 0-6, 6-1 victory over top seed Sofia Sorokina of Nelson in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, it was a rematch with Drayton and Uschold pulled it out 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the final.
From there, she was able to get over the hump and take down Suresh.
“I know (Suresh’s) backhand is phenomenal and I knew I had to put extra pressure on it if I was going to do well today,” Uschold said. “I just had to try my best to move her around and get her out of that strike zone.”
Alexis Uschold, combined with her freshman little sister Olivia Uschold picking up two consolation bracket wins, helped power the Panthers to a third place finish as a team.
“I lost last year in a third set and to comeback and have two three-set wins (on Friday) meant a lot,” Alexis Uschold said. “I think it’s really neat (to become the second Panther to win state). I have a sister and I know she’s going to keep that tradition and I hope to do doubles maybe with her. Super proud of my school and glad to be a part of it.”
5A
The 5A girls tennis state tournament may as well have been renamed the Crescent Valley invitational as the Raiders dominated the weekend from start to finish.
Both the singles and doubles finals featured intra-squad showdowns with senior Emily Gu taking on freshman Suzie Liu in the singles final, and then the duo of junior Keira Lin and freshman Juliet Newbery taking on juniors Natalie Yong and Alison Li in the doubles final.
It was Gu emerging with the 6-2, 6-1 win to take the singles crown while Lin and Newbery won in doubles with a 6-0, 6-2 victory.
Crescent Valley finished with 28 team points, well ahead of Ashland in second place with nine. Summit took third with 6.5 points and Redmond placed fourth with six.
“We knew we had a really good team, but you don’t know until you get there,” Raiders head coach Mandy Degelsmith said. “Everyone just dug deep and did what they needed to do in the moment.”
The win was special for Gu who made the state final as a freshman and sophomore in 2023 and 2024 before falling to three-time state champion Kennedy Harris of La Salle Prep both times.
Gu took her junior year off last season, but returned for her senior year and got the chance to end it with a state title.
“Pretty tired,” Gu said of the feeling after winning. “It’s pretty nice, it’s like a senior bonus before I go to college.”
“I know that she has been waiting a long time for this,” Degelsmith said. “I know it makes her really happy to finally have that title.”
As for Lin and Newbery on the doubles side, the two are both strong individual players, but came together this season.
From the jump the two gelled together and became a force that proved to be unstoppable on the 5A level.
“(Lin) is a very highly rated player and (Newbery) is an upcoming freshman, also a great player,” Degelsmith said. “This was a new partnership for them, but I think that their energy together, from the beginning, was amazing. They worked really hard to gel and figure out how to work together over the season.”
Gu said she’s loved playing with the Crescent Valley team over the years and is heading to Rice University next year, not to play tennis, but Gu said she’ll look into playing club.
Watching the team grow and seeing Liu make it to the final as a freshman gives Gu confidence the team will continue to excel.
“This team is amazing and I’ve known a lot of people on this team for a long time, since elementary school so it was great to play with them,” Gu said. “(Liu) is a very aggressive player and I admire her for that. She’s astonishing and I think she’s going to get a lot better the next few years and hopefully I’ll get to see that.”
Overall it’s the fifth team title in Raiders girls tennis history, and their fourth crown in the past five years after winning from 2022-2024.
Degelsmith took over the team last year and got to see them add one more to the trophy case in this incredible run for the program.
“When you have big shoes to fill, you have to try and fill them,” Degelsmith said. “Obviously we have great players. When you’ve got great players and you bring them together, hopefully you get a great team and we did.”
4A/3A/2A/1A
The depth of Marist Catholic won out at the 4A/3A/2A/1A girls tennis state tournament Saturday at Oregon State University.
The Spartans won the team crown with 28 points, besting Catlin Gabel in second with 19 points, St. Mary’s Medford in third with 15.5 points and Oregon Episcopal in fourth with 12. The team title is the sixth in program history, moving the Spartans into a tie for fourth most in Oregon history.
Junior Whitney Hedden had one of the most dominant performances a player could have at state. The No. 1 seed only dropped two games across her four match wins, one coming in the semifinals in a 6-1, 6-0 win over Carys Chamberland of St. Mary’s Medford and the other in a 6-1, 6-0 win over Catlin Gabel’s Ria Shah in the final.
Hedden finished runnerup last year and got the job done this year to become the first Spartan to win the individual crown since Madisyn Bryant in 2016.
Hedden was far from alone though as senior Phoebie Larson won a couple singles matches to reach the semifinals before falling to Shah.
The Spartans had three doubles duos make the state tournament and all three scored four points by reaching the quarterfinals. The pairs included senior Stela Larson and junior Talia Tyner, senior Taylor Murphy and sophomore Maggie Helfrich, and juniors Addie Hirons and Libby McLaughlin.
Winning the doubles crown was Catlin Gabel seniors Amanda Perez and Jiya Mehta, repeating as champions after winning last season together.
The Eagles duo got a strong test from league foe Cici and Ella Li out of Oregon Episcopal. The match went three sets but Perez and Mehta survived 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-2 to take home the second crown.
austinw@osaa.org
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