Saratoga News

Cover Story

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Reaching for a forehand return is Saratoga's Rohit D'Costa in the No. 1 doubles match at the Central Coast Section tennis tournament last week. D'Costa teamed with Abhinav Dev for a win in their doubles match, but the Falcons lost to Menlo 5-2.

Gast Up

Saratoga's Jeff Gast leads the Falcons into the CCS semifinals

By Dick Sparrer

Jeff Gast stared across the net, throwing a determined look in the direction of his opponent, Daniel Hoffman of Menlo.

The Saratoga High School senior had just one thing on his mind--beat Hoffman and lead the Falcons to a Central Coast Section boys tennis championship.

On May 9, though, that wasn't to be. Oh, Gast defeated Hoffman, winning 6-4, 6-2. But the Falcons couldn't match the showing of their No. 1 singles star.

Saratoga lost 5-2 to Menlo's Knights, who would go on to face Bellarmine for the CCS championship on May 11 at the Courtside Tennis Club in Los Gatos.

The Falcons played the Knights tough, with five of the seven matches going three sets, but on this day at the Decathlon Club in Santa Clara, victory just wasn't meant to be for Saratoga.

Still, by reaching the CCS semifinals the Falcons were able to maintain the tradition of winning tennis that the school has demonstrated through the years.

Four times the Falcons have reached the CCS title match, and twice they have been crowned section champions--in 1987 with a 5-2 win over Los Altos, and in 2004 with a 6-1 victory over Menlo. They lost 7-0 to Bellarmine in their first CCS championship match back in 1981, and they lost again to Sacred Heart Prep 5-2 last year.

Gast, who heads to UCLA next year, tops the ladder for the Falcons, who rolled to 18 wins in 21 matches this spring. With John Lamble at No. 2, Eric Gast at No. 3 and Andrew Hsieh at No. 4, Saratoga was able to throw a formidable singles line-up on the court for every match.

The Falcons were solid in doubles play, too, with Rohit D'Costa and Abhinav Dev at No. 1, Michael Wu and Emerson Lin at No. 2 and Jason Daniel and Michael Wyatt at No. 3.

Saratoga's line-up was strong enough to reach the CCS tournament and sweep past St. Ignatius 7-0 in the quarterfinals before losing the tough decision to Menlo in the semis.

With the strong showing for the Falcons in 2007, a tradition lives on at Saratoga High School.