Opponents Can’t Beat Miraleste Netters but Closure of School Will

The Peninsula Unified School District is on the verge of doing what no team has done in the 1980s--ending the girls tennis dynasty at Miraleste High School.

Next Tuesday the Miraleste girls tennis team, a three-time CIF-Southern Section 4-A champion since 1981, will finish its season at Claremont College by battling LA Westlake for yet another Southern Section championship. Miraleste earned a berth in the finals by crushing Rolling Hills, 15-3, in the semis.

At 18-0, and with its proud history, you’d think Miraleste’s program would be thriving.

Indeed it is. Year after year, top players are turned out like sleek cars off a production line.

But all that could change soon. Two weeks ago the Peninsula Board of Education, which serves Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills and Miraleste high schools, voted unanimously to close Miraleste at the end of the school year for financial reasons. The district has lost 60% of its enrollment since the early 1970s.

A residents’ committee--the East Peninsula Education Council--is seeking an injunction to prevent the closing and to eventually create a new district for Miraleste students. The group expects to go to court before Miraleste closes in June.

Should the EPEC’s efforts fail, next year Miraleste students--including its dominant tennis players--will transfer to Palos Verdes or Rolling Hills high schools.

Last year the school board attempted to resolve a financial problem by closing a junior high and converting Miraleste into a junior-senior high. Now, it seems, that wasn’t enough.

But at least for now, the tennis dynasty lives.

And it figures to grow in the short term. With three nationally rated players and six ranked in Southern California, Miraleste is regarded as the favorite in Tuesday’s championship.

“If there were odds in Las Vegas,” said Jim Hanson, Miraleste’s coach and math department chairman, “we’d be the 50-1 favorite to win.”

When winning is so easy, yawns can come as often as victories.

“It’s hard sometimes to prepare yourself because you just expect to win,” said Krista Amend, Miraleste’s No. 1 singles player, who is ranked 15th in the nation and third in the Southland among 18-year-olds.

Added senior Heidi Hoffman, a member of the team’s prime doubles tandem: “I hate to say it but we don’t have much competition until the end of the season, if then.

“This team is fun and I don’t do it for the competition, and when you win so often it contributes to the fun. But it was more fun when the competition was tougher.”

Tougher? When?

Former Coach Clag Offutt’s teams won five Southern Section titles--three boys and two girls--between 1976 and 1984. Hanson’s teams have continued where Offutt’s clubs left off, compiling an eye-popping 76-3 record since 1984. Meanwhile, no less than six male and female players from Miraleste have advanced to Division 1-A college tennis since 1982. And Hanson’s first and third singles players expect to compete in college next season.

For some the only tough part seems deciding where to play.

“I have no idea where I want to go,” Amend said. “Maybe UCLA or Arizona. I want to see where my game takes me.”

Hoffman, who intends to study medicine and German, wants to attend Stanford or UC Berkeley, two of the nation’s best school’s for tennis. But she doesn’t expect to play. “I’m going to play tennis the rest of my life regardless of what I do,” she said. “But I wouldn’t try to walk-on at those schools because it’s too competitive.”

One girl who didn’t have to walk on is Miraleste’s No. 1 singles player from last season, Stephanie London. London, who begins her first collegiate season at USC in the spring, said playing for a team as dominant as Miraleste had its high and low points.

“At the beginning of the season our energy and spirit were high because we knew we were good, but then when you keep winning your energy level drops and it gets to be routine,” London said. “At the end of the season, in the playoffs, you start to get back the energy.”

The Marauders have relied on their coach to keep them focused. Hanson will transfer to one of the district’s two other schools if Miraleste closes but will not be guaranteed a coaching position. Amend thinks losing the coaching job will be hard on Hanson, but she added, “The funny thing is he’s told us he wishes we weren’t so good so he could help out more.”

Next year, unless he’s absorbed into another school’s tennis program, Hanson will teach math, but it’s Miraleste’s potential closing that depresses him. “I’ve been here since the school opened,” he said. “It’s been my home for 20 years and it’s very sad to lose my home.”

Still, losing a home has nothing to do with losing on the court, and Miraleste hasn’t lost much in the ‘80s. If Miraleste closes, Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills probably won’t lose much either in the next few years.

Much of the reason behind the three schools’ success has been the prominence of the community’s private tennis clubs.

“In the late ‘70s there was a push in tennis,” Hanson said, “and tennis clubs sprouted all over Southern California. Youngsters started playing and my kids started at an early age.”

Playing every year polished the students’ games. A wealthy community where many families belonged to recreational clubs added to the success of school tennis programs by allowing more practice.

The area’s wealth of talent has made a difference too. Like the Chris Everts and Martina Navaratilovas of professional tennis, Miraleste’s girls have made it look easy.

But senior Tricia Simpson, Miraleste’s No. 3 singles player, said: “It’s not as easy as it sounds or looks. Our coach worries a lot more than we do. It sounds easy but there is a lot more pressure than you can see.”

Simpson, ranked 31st among 18-year-olds in Southern California, is considering a scholarship to Weber State in Utah where, she said, she will be guaranteed a chance to play. Simpson doesn’t want to be forced to fight for a position at a school like UCLA.

Another Marauder, junior Kim Po, doesn’t mind the fight--if there is one. Po, Miraleste’s No. 2 singles player, is ranked first among 16-year-olds in Southern California and fourth nationally. She has talked to UCLA about a scholarship and said she wants to play college tennis only in Southern California because she doesn’t fancy some of the people in other parts of the country where she has traveled to play in tournaments.

Po, like Miraleste’s other players, sometimes finds it difficult to get excited about matches she knows she’ll win. Her easygoing attitude makes the mental pressure seem non-existent.

And this year at Miraleste it has been. “You blow your top when you are in a stressed situation,” said Hanson, “and we’ve never been in a stressed situation.”

But the decision to close Miraleste has left team members far from calm.

“Last year,” Po said, “they changed our school to go from grades seven to 12 and now they’re closing it. I don’t think it’s fair.”