By DICK SPARRER
Maren Lassner and Leah Thomas are back!
The Los Gatos twosome will return to the Central Coast Section girls' tennis doubles tournament thanks to a solid performance at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League finals.
The two Wildcats, seeded No. 3 in the tourney, will open CCS play Nov. 21, 12:30 p.m., against a doubles team from Santa Teresa.
The Cats earned the CCS berth by reaching the finals at the SCVAL tournament. But they lost a three-set heartbreaker to a St. Francis pair in the league championship match.
Lassner and Thomas lost 6-4 in the first set, but evened the match with a 6-4 win in the second set. The two evenly matched teams were tied 6-6 in the third and final set, but the Lancers won the tiebreaker 8-6 to take the title.
The Gatos twosome had opened the tournament with an easy 6-3, 6-1 win over a team from Gunn, then beat a Homestead duo 6-3, 6-2. They went three sets to beat a team from Palo Alto 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, then handled Malea Doore and Nicole Behnke 6-1, 6-3 in the semifinals.
That set up the championship match against St. Francis, and the Cats lost in three sets.
Doore and Behnke went on to claim third in the SCVAL doubles tournament.
The Saratoga pair had beaten a team from St. Francis 6-3, 6-4 to open tournament play, then beat teams from Lynbrook (6-2, 6-0) and Wilcox (6-0, 6-0) to advance to the semifinals.
The Falcons lost to the Cats, but came back to beat teammates Lindsay Lightbody and Kelly Pisani in the third-place match.
Lightbody and Pisani, who retired because of injury in that last match, had opened with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over a Los Altos duo, then beat teams from Gunn (6-0, 6-4) and Paly (6-2, 6-3) to move into the semi's. But they lost there to the St. Francis team that would eventually win the league title. Lightbody and Pisani took the Lancers three sets before losing 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
In singles play, Robin Katzman of Saratoga made it to the semifinals before losing in three sets to eventual league champ Kim Guy of St. Francis.
Katzman opened the tourney with a 6-0, 6-2 win over a Los Altos player, then handled Brie Ahern of Homestead 6-0, 6-2. Ahern had whipped Kim Lai of Monta Vista 6-1, 6-0 in the first round.
The Saratoga singles star rolled past a Mountain View foe 6-4, 6-0 to advance to the semifinals, but lost there to Guy. Katzman then dropped a 6-2, 6-0 nod to Stephanie Fong of Mountain View in the battle for third place.
Annie Gunderson of Cupertino joined Katzman in the tourney semi's, but lost to Guy 6-1, 6-0.
Gunderson had opened with a 6-3, 6-4 win over a Palo Alto opponent, then beat a Wilcox player to advance in the tourney.
In other tournament action, Fremont's Nancy Bui lost a tough 6-0, 6-4 nod to a Wilcox player in the first round of the singles tournament. The Fremont doubles team of Nina Nguyen and Julie Huang also lost in the first round, falling 6-1, 6-0 to a team from Wilcox.
In regular season action, Homestead closed out the league campaign with a 6-1 win over Gunn. Ahern posted a 7-6, 6-1 win at No. 1 singles to lead the Mustangs to the victory. Homestead finished the year 6-8 in league play and 7-9 for the year.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 20, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.