Spanning the weekend of January 11th and 12th, the 2025 Southern California Tennis On Campus (TOC) Sectionals took place at the Barnes Tennis Center. Fourteen unique universities were represented in San Diego, with many schools sending multiple teams from their clubs to compete, all vying for the opportunity to advance to the 2025 USTA Tennis on Campus National Championships.

The competition followed the co-ed World TeamTennis format, featuring singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, with each match consisting of a single set. Teams competed across five lineups: female doubles, male doubles, female singles, male singles, and mixed doubles, all contributing to the overall match outcome. The top team of the Sectional Championships, along with a wild card team and the remaining three teams reaching the semifinals in the Gold bracket, earned automatic spots in the National Championships. This year’s TOC Nationals, the pinnacle of the season, will be held from April 3-5 in Rome, Georgia, where 64 colleges and universities will compete for the title of the nation’s best collegiate club team.

Beginning play on Saturday, the 28 teams were divided into pools of four for round-robin play, all competing for a spot in Sunday’s Gold bracket.

Perfecting their pool play with undefeated records were USC’s A team, SDSU’s A team, UCSB’s A team, UCI’s A team, Cal Poly SLO’s A team, UCLA’s A team, and the defending champions, UCSD’s A team. CMS’ A team, who advanced with a 2-1 record in pool play, claimed the final spot in the Gold bracket.

As the competition moved into day two, the intensity ramped up with National Championship bids on the line.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO (UCSD)

UCSD’s A team made history on Sunday night, securing a Sectionals title for the second consecutive year. This marked the first time a SoCal university had repeated as champions since UCLA did so in 2020 and 2022 (with no Sectionals held in 2021 due to the pandemic).

On Saturday, the Tritons were placed in a pool alongside UCI’s B team, Cal Poly SLO’s B team, and CSUN’s A team. They finished pool play undefeated, going 3-0 with 13 sets won and just two lost, achieving an impressive 80% games won rate. Advancing to the Gold bracket, the Tritons first took on CMS’ A team, defeating them 30-7. In the semifinals, they triumphed once more, overcoming UCLA’s A team with a 24-19 victory.

In the finals, UCSD found themselves trailing early, as the Gauchos claimed victories in male doubles, female singles, and male singles. With the score at 21-17 entering mixed doubles, the Tritons faced a must-win situation. They delivered a thrilling comeback, with their mixed doubles team securing a dramatic 6-1 win, ultimately clinching the Sectionals title with a final score of 23-22.

Key performances came from several Tritons, notably the mixed doubles duo of Kiichi Ishida and Rachel Sherrill, who remained undefeated, winning all six of their matches. Alyson Hirota also had a standout weekend, winning five of her female doubles matches, three of which were alongside Weng Si Leong. The Tritons dominated in male doubles, with Logan Li leading the charge, claiming five victories, three of them with Jared Admiraal and two with Sahil Iyer. In male singles, Ethan Vo was exceptional, winning five of his matches, while Allyson Chen earned three victories in female singles.

“Sectionals for me is always very special, especially this year being at Barnes because I grew up here,” mentioned Vo. “I feel that winning back-to-back titles validates our first championship, and having the chance to share this experience with everyone on the team is really special. We felt that this Sectionals championship was our first step towards winning Nationals, which is our ultimate goal. Nationals was really fun last year, especially with the whole environment of the event featuring so many players that are passionate about playing club tennis, just like us.” 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA (UCSB) 

UCSB’s A team, runners-up at this year’s Sectionals, delivered an outstanding performance, pulling off several upsets and dominant victories on their way to the finals. After falling just one point shy of a Nationals berth last year, the Gauchos were determined not to let that happen again.

UCSB went 3-0 in pool play, securing a spot in the Gold Bracket with a games won percentage of 70.6%, having also won 12 sets and lost just 4. In pool play, they first defeated Cal Poly SLO’s C team, SDSU’s B team, and Cal Poly Pomona’s A team. Their strong run continued as they faced UCI’s A team in the first round of the Gold bracket, winning 26-18. In the semifinals, they triumphed over SDSU’s A team with a 29-18 victory. Though they fell in a nail-biting final against UCSD, the Gauchos are eager to make a statement at Nationals following their impressive Sectionals performance.

Significant contributions for the Gauchos came from the female doubles pairing of Abigail Park and Eden Fong, who won three of their matches together. In male doubles, the combinations of Aleksandr Lavrentyev, Kyle Villeponteau, and Maximus Catabona led the team to five victories out of six matches. Fong was perfect in female singles, winning all six of her matches, while Pramukh Shankar earned four victories in male singles. Parker Perdue also contributed with two wins.

“I’m most looking forward to traveling to Georgia for Nationals and getting to spend time with the team,” said Shankar. “Last year, we had a really tough loss during Sectionals that came down to sudden death, so this year it feels so good to come up and overachieve and go so much farther than expected. The adjustments that we made during our matches this weekend was the best thing for us. We all adapted to the situations we were in and by the time we reached the finals, I think we played pretty much our best tennis as a team.”

SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY (SDSU)

Earning themselves a second trip to Nationals in as many years, SDSU’s A team had a successful weekend of play. In pool play, the Aztecs were placed in a group with UCLA’s B team, USC’s B team, and LMU’s A team, where they went 3-0, winning 11 sets and losing just 4, with a games won percentage of 66.4%. Advancing to the Gold bracket, SDSU faced USC’s A team and triumphed with a dominant 30-13 victory. Though they were defeated in the semifinals by UCSB’s A team, their quarterfinals win was more than enough to secure their return to Nationals.

The Aztecs had several standouts, including Nikolaus Zemlijic, who won four mixed doubles matches, three with Kailee You and one with Shreya Bharath. In gender-based singles, Jolie Morgan won all three of her matches, while Michael Rafael was perfect in his four matches.

“Sectionals was really great for us this year. We’re on winter break right now, but we all came together and through the help of our school’s club sports administration and Aztec Recreation, we were all able to make it to this point and advance to Nationals which is awesome,” mentioned Anya Siegel. “We brought two teams to Sectionals this year which was really fun. Going to Nationals for the second year in a row is very exciting, and we have a very fun and young team so we are looking forward to traveling together.”

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES (UCLA)

UCLA, the most decorated TOC program in the history of the SoCal section, earned another chance to claim a National Championship after their A team secured a bid at Sectionals. During pool play, the Bruins went undefeated with a 3-0 record, winning nearly 80% of their games and never dropping a set. Advancing to the Gold bracket, they first faced Cal Poly SLO’s A team, defeating them 27-14. Although they lost their next match to UCSD’s A team, UCLA sealed their spot with a victory in the quarterfinals.

Talia Lieb was a key performer, winning three of her female doubles matches, two alongside Saachi Pavani and one with Natalia Mochernak. Nishad Elias also impressed, winning three of his male doubles matches, two with Peter Boyd and one with Kyle Shigekawa, who also secured a win in doubles alongside Aniketh Poruri.

“The team environment was great at Sectionals. Having all our teams here cheering for each other’s matches made every point really fun, and we all had an awesome time hanging out together,” stated Elias. “We’re excited to compete at Nationals and are ready to win,” added Lieb.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (USC)

Punching the first ticket to TOC Nationals via a wild card entry was USC’s A team, who earned the bid following their championship victory at the 2024 TOC Fall Invitational. Held in Austin, Texas, the event featured 32 of the nation’s premier club teams, including five hailing from SoCal. Placed into a pool with Dallas Baptist University, Columbia University and Colorado State University, USC went 2-1, with the most sets and games won of the four teams. Advancing into the Gold Bracket, the Trojans faced off against a familiar foe in the form of San Diego State, where they would be victorious by a final of 25-17. Moving on to the semifinals, they squared off with an undefeated Georgetown squad, where they once again won, this time by a score of 25-20. The championship match turned into an all-SoCal showdown, as USC faced off against Cal Poly SLO. In a rematch of last year’s Sectionals semifinals, the Trojans exacted their revenge on the Mustangs, securing the title with a 28-24 victory.

Noteworthy contributions for the Trojans in the playoffs came from Mihika Joshi and Hannah Jiang, who dominated the female doubles competition, winning every match they played. In mixed doubles, Lauren Sun remained undefeated, securing victories in all her matches while partnering with Kevin Liu for two contests and Justin Lenderman for one. Lenderman also excelled in the men’s singles, winning both his matches.

“I’m most looking forward to seeing all the different schools from all across the country at Nationals,” shared Jiang. “I think it’s fun having the opportunity to play against schools not from this area. There’s a lot of very interesting team dynamics that we saw when we attended Nationals last year, so it’s always just fun to experience. This weekend at Sectionals was great being able to spend so much time with our team. We unfortunately didn’t have all of our members here this weekend, but it gave us the chance to play a lot of different lineups and try different things.”

SILVER & BRONZE BRACKET

Although they didn’t qualify for the Gold bracket, the remaining teams still had everything to play for. As Sunday began, the best 16 remaining teams were divided into the Silver and Bronze brackets based on their performance from day one. Ultimately, it was UCLA’s B and C teams that faced off in the Silver bracket finals, while the Bronze bracket saw USC’s B and C squads competing for the title.